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Séamus Ennis used to tell a lovely story of how a piper got [The Gold Ring] jig from the fairies after coming across a fairy session late one night and finding a gold ring after disturbing the proceedings. On returning with the tiny gold ring the next day he was rewarded by a grateful fairy with the tune that the piper was playing the previous night and The Gold Ring was the title that the piper gave to the tune from that day forth.

Séamus Ennis was the spiritus rector of uilleann piper Neil Mulligan. In the 1970s, when Séamus ran a traditional club in Slattery's pub of Capel Street, Dublin, called An Tobar Glé (i.e. the clear/bright well), Neil was one of the resident musicians. Neil also has fond memories of Séamus's father Jim Ennis coming on visits to our house when I was a young boy and telling wonderful stories to us all. He certainly followed the piper's instruction that a piper should spend seven years learning, seven years practising, and seven years playing before calling himself a piper.

Neil has been through to this. He brings to life the legacy of Ennis, but he also recalls the other heroes of the Irish piping tradition, Willie Clancy, Leo Rowsome, and even sean-nós singer Seán ach Dhonncha from Carna who influenced Neil's attitude to the playing of slow airs. Again it was Séamus Ennis who always insisted on the importance of understanding the Gaelic words.

However, it was Neil's father Tom being the source for most of his tunes, and the album finishes off appropriately with two home recorded sets from 1982 featuring the late Tom Mulligan on the fiddle. Neil prefers the art of solo piping, he says: Unless you're into buying and listening to CDs, there's no place to hear it. There's nowhere like Slattery's today. And music is all speeded up — everybody seems to have a bouzouki or guitar player in tow.

This is the pure drop from the well of tradition. Walkin' T:-)M

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The Piper Calls the Tune.

A protégé of greats like Leo Rowsome and Seamus Ennis, not to mention his own dad, Tom. Neillidh Mulligan is steeped in the greatest traditions of ulleann piping.

His third album, An Tobar Gle (The Bright Well) proudly maintains these rich traditions with a masterful display of top tunes.

In an age of hybrids and cultural crossover, it's also refreshing joy to hear the pure art of the musician. COLIN IRWIN

The Journal of Music in Ireland Nov/Dec 2003

One of the driving influences in the development of traditional music is the process of transmission.

Maybe transmission is not always how it looks and feels at first hand - within the community of practitioners of traditional music, we often talk about getting things from others, we talk of learning from others, We rarely say that we took anything from anybody. For us, things just get passed on deliberately or by chance, by somebody specific or by somebody who knows somebody, yes, it does sound shady, We pick things up. Maybe from time to time they fall off the back of the proverbial lorry! The right time and the right place are important in this music.

Only rarely does the idea of reciprocation come into it, although we do stray into this territory when we talk of being 'influenced by or 'following in the tradition of'. Some musicians will create their own sound world around the music of one or more significant players who they were lucky enough meet. Some musicians will follow a path that is more or lest, mapped out by others whose music and musical attitude made enough of an impression on them, even from a distance in space of time, to determine their personal musical choices and direction into the future.

These ways into the transmission process are visible to a greater or lesser degree throughout the entire practise of traditional music, song and dance, in my view; they are especially prominent in a few elements of the instrumental tradition and also in the song traditions of our two principal languages. Within the instrumental tradition, the amazing world of piping and pipering stands out.

The particular culture around the instrument itself, the piperosity of its players, the way players influence and lead others, and the act of performance of music on this instrument all lend extra weight to standard notions of transmission and legacy.

ln this context, An Tobar Gle, the new album from Neil Mulligan, presses many of the right, buttons for me, nor least in the quality of the relaxed playing that Mulligan presents here.

He comes across as relaxed and confident to the extent that the pure musicality of performance takes precedence over any aspirations to faultlessness of performance and I think this works really well in this case. Listening to An Tobar Gle for the first time, I was struck by two things.

First, the extent to which Mulligan very comfortably inhibits what is an exclusive enough territory, and not one into which any piper wisely strays either unprepared or by chance - the Ennis school of piping. Choice of repertoire is only one indicator of Mulligan's debt to Ennis. What makes for much more interesting listening to my ear, is how Mulligan interprets other tunes ('other' meaning not from the Ennis canon) through the filter of Ennis's approach which is by far the strongest influence on his playing here.

On An Tobar Gle, we get a very clear sense or how Mulligan has internalised and re-expressed in his own voice, a particular approach to rhythm, ornamentation and overall sound that is clearly indebted to the Ennis school, with many shades of other influences as well. Frankie Lane's informed approach to the recording and engineering of An Tobar Gle also suggests a relaxed confidence - is it not about time that we were allowed to hear pipes being played enjoyably in a room sound just pipes being played enjoyably in a room.

The second thing that struck me was the graceful and respectful way in which Mulligan discloses his relatively privileged access to all of the significant routes into the transmission processes have made him the musician he is today.

The reason Mulligan is good is not simply that he knew anybody in particular, it's that he knows exactly what it means to have known them and he has made musical sense of all of this. Aside from the solo piping which acts as a musical mirror Mulligan's development as a musician, there is a constant grounding effect in the notes to the performances. Everything has come to Mulligan from somebody somewhere and the way he sets about 'owning up' to this adds immeasurably to the sense of authenticity that pours from his music.

Hence the inclusion of two sonically difficult tracks derived from home recordings of Neil and his father, Tom, which do jar on the ear on first hearing, but also explain much of the rest of the music on the album. The visual material in the liner notes are presented in a warmly conceived design by Edain O'Donnell and they reinforce the importance of the people who make and keep tradition alive and dynamic as any contemporary artform must be if it is to make sense.

I was delighted to hear four new compositions of Mulligan's on this album. These show another dimension to his musicianship - he is well aware of both the tradition and the limitations that go with the instrument, but he is game to tackle these to good effect, particularly in the air 'Caitriona Rua' and the reels An Tobar Gle' and 'Oilean na Meannain.

As an accurate musical portrait of a man who has given so much to piping and who has so much still to say, An Tobar Gle does the business.

Dermot McLaughlin (Donegal Fiddler)

From www.irishmusicreview.com

Finally, replete with informative notes on the tunes and plenty of archive photographs, the album's beautifully designed liner should serve as a model for other small independent labels. Geoff Wallis

Pay The Reckoning, October 2003

Pipers are few and far between. The task of mastering the instrument's intricacies and idiosyncrasy is beyond most musicians and consequently only a few, a devoted and courageous few, stick the pace.

Thank God Mulligan didn't take the path of least resistance, because An Tobar Gle shows what a consummate musician he is. There are no niches and alleyways in which to lurk as a solo musician. The "line of sight" into the piper's heart and soul is perfectly clear. We feel every shift in mood, every doubt, every worry, every up-welling of joy. Because music played at the level at which Mulligan operates is nothing to do with "the dots". Instead it's about communicating the tune, or rather his version of the tune, with all of its humours and notions, to the listener.

Some fine dance sets such as "East Of Glendart/I Buried My Wife And Danced On Top Of Her", "The Morning Thrush/Colonel Frazer" and "An Fainne Oir/Airgead Realach" are interspersed with tremendous airs, such as his moving version of "A Stor Mo Chroi" and a jaw-droppingly fine rendition of "Taimse im' Chodladh".

Mulligan is as good a writer of tunes as he is a player. "An Tobar Gle", "The Dooneen Reel "and "Oilean Na Meannain" are as infectious and memorable as any of the traditional material on the album and warrant becoming part of anyone's repertoire.

However the most beautiful of Mulligan's self-composed tracks on the album is a slow air dedicated to the memory of his mother. "Caitriona Rua" is a fitting ode to a deeply loved and sorely missed mother.

Mulligan's love and respect for his family is demonstrated further. The album contains two tracks on which Mulligan duets with his late father, Tom Mulligan - "The Fermoy Lasses/The London Lasses/The Rose In The Garden" and "Chase Her Through The Garden/Kiss Her In The Furze". Although recorded on primitive domestic equipment, the quality of the playing and the very obvious musical bond between father and son overcome any doubts about the technical aspects of the recording process.

This shockingly good album is available from the increasingly influential and consistently discerning at Copperplate.

Taplas, The Welsh Folk Magazine. Oct/ Nov 2003

Mulligan is something of a purist's musician. His third CD of uilleann piping is, again, unencumbered by accompaniment.

Don't expect brazen virtuosity or fireworks either: Mulligan can rattle out the reels with the best of them, but his style remains measured and tasteful with a judicious use of ornamentation and variation that never draws attention to itself.

His three sets of pipes (including one made by Leo Rowsome for Felix Doran) are beautiful-sounding instruments and the varied choice of tunes is never arbitrary. As the sleeve notes explain, every tune, from well-known standards like The Gold Ring or Donal Óg to some interesting ones of his own, is there because of some association or connection, sometimes to his late father, who as a musician was Mullligan's greatest influence, or one of the circle of players around Rowsome and Seamus Ennis. John Neilson.

Musical Traditions Web Site 9.03

An Tobar Glé is an unquestionably exquisite example of the piper's art and confirms Neil Mulligan as one of the instrument's supreme contemporary exponents. Geoff Wallis - 3.09.03

Hot Press 17.703

The third album by Dublin piper, Neil Mulligan is as excellent as one would expect from this master musician. There's a splendid solidarity and authority to his playing, particularly on slow airs like Stor Mo Chroi, Donal Og and th epoignant Caitriona Rua written by Mulligan after the death of his mother. Other originals include th etitle track, a rollicking jig in honour of a folk club run by Seamus Ennis at Slattery's in Capel St during the 70's. Like it's predecessors, the CD features pure unadulterated solo piping --- which is just as well, as any accompaniment would have been rendered superflous by Mulligan's adroit use of his instrument's full range, complete with drones and regulators. Extensive notes on the jacket tell the stories behind the tunes and reveal the writer's affection for the music. Sarah McQuiad. 9 OUT OF 10.

The Irish Times.

Piper Neil Mulligan is back, as exuberant in his playing as ever. His taut rendition of The MorningThrush and Colonel Fraser is a tribute to their original caretakers, Seamus Ennis and his father, Jim, and a fitting bedrock underpinning a rake of fine tunes that shimmy between his armpit and dancing fingers. Rhythm masters of any hue would do well to cock an ear to I Buried My Wife, not for and Soprano-esque top tips, but for the taste of how organic timekeeping can soaar. Mulligan's own jigs, including the eponymous opener, are a shot in the arm for the pipes, with enough buoyant optimism to carry them well into the belly of the 21st century. Siobhan Long.