Armagh Pipers Club is an independent traditional music teaching organisation based in Armagh City. It provides classes at various levels for eight instruments and singing. It runs an annual international festival of pipe-based music.
The Pipers Club, with its welcoming, non-competitive ethos, has developed over six decades into a centre of excellence. Its music classes are attended by up to 200 children and adults from Armagh and seven neighbouring counties. The annual international William Kennedy Piping Festival, launched in 1994, attracts enthusiasts of pipe-based music from all over the world. A registered charity, the club operates from Áras na bPíobairí, its premises in Scotch Street, in the centre of Armagh.
Since the club was founded in 1966, thousands of young musicians have started their musical journey in the Armagh Pipers Club. Many still play today, some have pursued stellar musical careers as performers, teachers and academics. We have now on our rolls children and grandchildren of our original members.
The club provides low-cost classes for adults and children at a variety of levels in a wide range of traditional instruments – currently tin whistle, flute, fiddle, banjo, accordion, concertina, harp, uilleann pipes – and in singing. These are held on Monday nights in a school in Armagh, with 36 separate classes every week.
The club is a democratically run Company Limited by Guarantee, with a board of directors (who are also its charity trustees) elected directly by and from the membership. It is funded by the tuition fees paid by its students, income from the worldwide sales of its famed tutor books and CDs, concert box office, private donors and grant aid, principally from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and from Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council.