Cornish Bagpipes: Fact and Fiction

The Cornish bagpipe Pyba is closely connected to the music revival in Cornwall, UK, which started in the late 1970s. Belonging to one of the six so-called Celtic nations - alongside Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and Brittany - the Cornish revivalists were eager to promote Cornwall’s music as Celtic rather than English. They saw the bagpipe as a particularly Celtic instrument, which would legitimise their claim for a unique musical Cornish heritage and might promote Cornwall’s Celticity at parades on local feast days and at Interceltic Festivals.