BACK PAGE:Bill Haneman not only moved to Ireland from his native US but after he got here he left his career in IT to make uilleann pipes. writes MICK KELLY
FOR MANY people, a series of major life changes (and not just one) are required to create an entirely “new life”.
North Carolina native Bill Haneman arrived at his unlikely career utopia – making uilleann pipes for a living – in two stages. Twelve years ago he emigrated from the US to Skerries in north county Dublin with his wife and sister-in-law – that move across the Atlantic was change number one.
But having made that first leap of faith, he sensed that another change was required and so he subsequently made another brave leap into the unknown, ditching his job in the IT industry to become an instrument maker in 2007.
Haneman trained as a mechanical engineer and migrated towards the software industry, working in California and Seattle before deciding on a move to Ireland.
“We were looking for a change from the long commutes, the competitive ethos and the work-centred lifestyle that we had in the US,” he says. “It’s not that I was particularly unhappy in the States but I was not excited about the job opportunities I had over there.
“We had been to Ireland a few times and formed a really positive impression of it. We were just at the stage in our lives where we were looking for a new experience. An adventure.”
Unlike many Americans, Haneman’s affinity for Ireland was not the result of genealogy (he has no ancestry in Ireland as far as he’s aware) but because he was exposed to Irish music from bands like The Bothy Band, Planxty and Stockton’s Wing while he was a university student. Listening to those recordings started his love affair with the uilleann pipes.
“It was nearly 10 years after I first heard them in a song that I first saw them being played. They just seemed so wildly impractical. I marched up to a piper afterwards and asked him where he got them. As luck would have it he made them himself, so he made me a practice set.”
The piper Willie Clancy famously said that it takes seven years to learn how to play the uilleann pipes, then seven years of playing, and then a further seven years to become a master piper. Their mythical complexity was all part of the allure as far as Haneman was concerned.
Intriguingly, there was a community of uilleann pipers living in Seattle at the time and he was able to practise with them, but it wasn’t until he moved to Ireland that he felt he really got some traction on the instrument.
“In Skerries, to my surprise, I was more actively encouraged to bring them out and play them. As an outsider, that level of encouragement really surprised me.”
Though the culture shock of moving to Ireland must have been considerable, Haneman plays down the difficulties of the move. “We were willing to make the mental commitment to give it a minimum of three years to work. You hear about people who make a long distance move and then go somewhere else after a year because they don’t like it. You just can’t know whether you like a place after a year.”
So how did they pick Skerries? “We didn’t want to commute by car, so we got on the train in Dublin, went north and got off in the first place that looked good. We both grew up on water, albeit on opposite coasts of the US, so it appealed to us and the sun always seemed to be shining when we went to Skerries.”
While he got a job in the IT industry, his wife was unable to work because of the conditions of his working visa. “She took the chance to explore artistic and craft endeavours, the kind of things that go on the backburner when you have a full- time job. She continues to do that, though she did work for a number of years.”
His sister-in-law was of school-going age at the time and then went on to university – she is currently studying for a PhD.
While initially content with his new life, Haneman increasingly began to feel an undercurrent of unease – a sense that something was still missing.
In addition, he realised that many of the things he had been fleeing in the states had followed him to Ireland.
“I had developed my work into something that I believed in. I was working in software accessibility which meant a lot to me. But looking around me I was starting to see the long commutes, the suburban sprawl, and a more consumer-orientated lifestyle.”
At the same time, Haneman had become more interested in the craft of making uilleann pipes.
“It was always a distant retirement dream but it started to turn into a hobby and then a part-time job and eventually I had to decide between it and my job because I couldn’t satisfactorily continue with both.”
The financial implications of becoming an instrument maker, he says, were very considerable.
“You have to bear in mind that when I came here first I took a cut in salary of about 50 per cent. And now I am making about 30 per cent of what I was making in IT here in Ireland. It’s obviously important to have the flexibility to be able to live that way. That is a significant barrier to happiness for many people.”
Haneman is a fan of the “follow your bliss” philosophy of Joseph Campbell when it comes to one’s career.
“I think that you have to be open to it, and go through life without misconceptions about what that bliss might be. It’s the hardest thing I have ever done in my life but I feel extremely fortunate to have what I think is my perfect job, insofar as there is nothing I can think of that I would rather be doing.”
So how do you go about learning to become an uilleann pipe maker?
“With great difficulty,” he laughs. “It is even more difficult to make them than it is to play them. Almost all of the techniques that I use are techniques that were perfected in the 18th and 19th centuries. There is no school you can go to but if you dig deep enough you will find texts out there and I have found that the really skilled pipe-makers are a helpful bunch by and large.”
A full set of pipes, he says, costs in the region of €8,000 to buy but it takes up to four months of work to make each set. “I thought when I started that I would be able to make five or six full sets a year, but I now realise that was naive. If I make three or four sets a year, I am doing great.
“It would be possible to make more sets, and more money, but I think you would be compromising and taking some of the joy out of it. If you are going to be a sole proprietor and craftsman, you may as well do it your own way.”
- For more information about uilleann pipes log on to www.pipers.ie