Chiff and Fipple Forums

Anyone tried the Lir whistle yet? If so can you give us a review?

I've tried a D as well as an Eb a couple of weeks ago, I found them great - lovely sound, a bit more chiffy than Killarneys, easy players, not too loud, octaves nicely balanced.
The barrel is made from much stronger material than most other brass whistles which of course makes it a bit heavier but also makes the weight more balanced between whistle head and barrel.

How should I put it? The sound and handling is nice. I think it has a cleaner sound then my Killarney. That being said, it looks like cheaply imported from China without any quality control whatsoever. The mouthpiece has a chemical smell and oily taste, the tuning slide is rough and the nickel plating blotchy. The barrel has small scratches all over, like they never bothered to polish the barrel before plating it and my mouthpiece was clearly bent to one side. For the price I expected better quality control. But problem solved, because I dropped it and the windway cover broke.

That being said, it looks like cheaply imported from China without any quality control whatsoever.

In all fairness, that can, partly at least, be a start up problem. My Killarneys (D and Eb) looked dog rough on arrival, with ill fitting parts and in the case of the Eb with the rivets/pins missing. But they play well. The much later C is less pleasing to play but it looks immaculate. Now, hmm, what do I prefer?

Their site says

The Lír whistle is inspired by nearly a thousand years of traditional Celtic flutes and whistles.

Funny, from the photo it looks like it was inspired by five years of Killarneys.

Or Sindt.

@Mr.Gumby
Maybe, I don't wanna bash them too hard. Like I said -- it does play nicely (probably the most important thing after all). But they don't mention explicitely where it's made on the website and that is certainly fishy. It reminds me of another hobby of mine. Collecting wristwatches. And if a watch-maker/reseller/etc. doesn't mention where a watch movement is made, it can only mean one thing -- China. And it's not like everything from China is low quality (far from it) but if a watch or at least the movement, is made in Switzerland or Japan, you can be certain they'll mention it more than once. Also -- it's not mentioned anywhere what the material of the mouthpiece even is. It's certainly not delrin.
This is the only detail they give:
"All our whistles are machined by hand, then fully inspected and played by our expert players here in the west of Ireland."
It doesn't say they are made in Ireland and they certainly wouldn't forget to mention it if that was indeed the case.
But -- tuning, playing, sound, etc. were all good. So if they improve the overall finishing quality, they definitely have a nice whistle. I liked the sound and handling more than my Killarney. But the smell and taste was . And I washed the mouthpiece but that didn't eliminate that oily taste. It might have been the super-cheap pouch it came in. That certainly smelled toxic, too. I could give it another run, it still plays even with the cracked windway cover (which was definitely my fault because it dropped out of my pocket while getting out of the car).

Sedi wrote:Or Sindt.

@Mr.Gumby
Maybe, I don't wanna bash them too hard. Like I said -- it does play nicely (probably the most important thing after all). But they don't mention explicitely where it's made on the website and that is certainly fishy. It reminds me of another hobby of mine. Collecting wristwatches. And if a watch-maker/reseller/etc. doesn't mention where a watch movement is made, it can only mean one thing -- China. And it's not like everything from China is low quality (far from it) but if a watch or at least the movement, is made in Switzerland or Japan, you can be certain they'll mention it more than once. Also -- it's not mentioned anywhere what the material of the mouthpiece even is. It's certainly not delrin.
This is the only detail they give:
"All our whistles are machined by hand, then fully inspected and played by our expert players here in the west of Ireland."
It doesn't say they are made in Ireland and they certainly wouldn't forget to mention it if that was indeed the case.
But -- tuning, playing, sound, etc. were all good. So if they improve the overall finishing quality, they definitely have a nice whistle. I liked the sound and handling more than my Killarney. But the smell and taste was . And I washed the mouthpiece but that didn't eliminate that oily taste. It might have been the super-cheap pouch it came in. That certainly smelled toxic, too. I could give it another run, it still plays even with the cracked windway cover (which was definitely my fault because it dropped out of my pocket while getting out of the car).

Killarney whistles is also pretty vague about where they're made. I'm certainly a sucker for "made in Ireland," the ancestral homeland. Their website says "produced in Ireland," which is a little unclear. Are they standing at a lathe? Or are they assembling parts made elsewhere? Of course I doubt any whistle maker, anywhere, is drawing and rolling his own brass tubing, so in that sense all metal whistles are probably to some extent assembled from parts. I have four killarney whistles and like them all a lot: if they are "assembled" in Ireland it's pretty clear they are now well assembled, and there's evidence of hand tuning in the finger holes.

There probably are legal definitions in place as to when something can be labelled "Made in Ireland". In the case of "Swiss Made" for instance, when it comes to wristwatches, there are clear rules. But often those can be manipulated. Sometimes it just needs a certain "value generated" in one country. So that means (once again my favourite example are watches as I know a bit about those) -- importing a Chinese watch movement and then checking how it runs or oiling it, can already generate enough value (especially when considering European wages as opposed to Chinese ones) to label something "Swiss Made" -- but they changed those rules, I think. I guess it might be similar with "Made in Ireland". And of course, when making metal whistles, nobody makes his own tubes. It's not possible. But you also normally don't grow a tree yourself and wait 30 years to make a wooden whistle. So it might well be possible that Killarney, as well as Lír buy some pre-fabricated parts and then assemble it to a certain degree. That's also not really my main critique. It's more the missing transparency when it comes to the materials and the lack of quality control in the finished product. I can tolerate missing quality control on a 10€-Generation but not on a whistle for 75€.

There probably are legal definitions in place as to when something can be labelled "Made in Ireland".

There are. I don't t know what they are exactly but I do know that some food products can be labelled as produced in Ireland if they are finished here in some way or another. Chicken born, bred and slaughtered in Thailand is sold here as produced in Ireland, on the back of some finalising actions, for example.

See here

I assume something similar is in place for non-food items.

Goods the production of which involves more than one country or territory are deemed to originate in the country or territory where they underwent their last, substantial, economically-justified processing or working, in an undertaking equipped for that purpose, resulting in the manufacture of a new product or representing an important stage of manufacture


In general 'last substantial transformation' is determined in three ways:

by a change of tariff (sub) heading in the HS nomenclature;
by undergoing a manufacturing or processing operation that is listed in the customs rules as a process that confers on the goods the origin of the country in which these operations were carried out;
by a value added rule, where the increase of value due to assembly operations and incorporation of originating materials represents a specified level of the ex-works price of the product

Mr.Gumby wrote:

There probably are legal definitions in place as to when something can be labelled "Made in Ireland".

There are. I don't t know what they are exactly but I do know that some food products can be labelled as produced in Ireland if they are finished here in some way or another. Chicken born, bred and slaughtered in Thailand is sold here as produced in Ireland, on the back of some finalising actions, for example.

See here

I assume something similar is in place for non-food items.

Goods the production of which involves more than one country or territory are deemed to originate in the country or territory where they underwent their last, substantial, economically-justified processing or working, in an undertaking equipped for that purpose, resulting in the manufacture of a new product or representing an important stage of manufacture


In general 'last substantial transformation' is determined in three ways:

by a change of tariff (sub) heading in the HS nomenclature;
by undergoing a manufacturing or processing operation that is listed in the customs rules as a process that confers on the goods the origin of the country in which these operations were carried out;
by a value added rule, where the increase of value due to assembly operations and incorporation of originating materials represents a specified level of the ex-works price of the product

I'm pretty confident about the Kerrygold butter, but who knows?

PB+J wrote: I'm pretty confident about the Kerrygold butter, but who knows?

Red flag of suspicion has been raised. Does anyone have proof of origin? Proof of process? I'm under the impression it's a deceptive Chinese knockoff of the Killarney design, having arranged a smokescreen of identity in order to get imported into Europe. The website looks ill-considered and amateur. I can't see a proud Irish crafter/producer making that website. The name, "Lir", what is that? A typical mis-translated tourist-speak acronym derived from "Jade Dragon Irish Whistle Economic Warfare Tool #75,380,182,173"?

Claiming itself to have roots in "a thousand years of traditional celtic flutes and whistles", seems a pattern of thinking typical of cheesy Chinese salesmanship in a tourist market in Beijing, beside a filthy cigarette store and sushi palace, not Irish pride of whistle making. Who knows what flutes and whistles the Irish were playing 1000 years ago, in the year 1020, that have a lineage that drive directly at the recent Killarney design, and then mimicked? A North Korean exporter maybe? LOL

By the way, the first line of "Our Story" on the Clarke website, is that "The first Clarke Tinwhistle was invented in 1843 in Coney Weston, a tiny village near Bury St. Edmunds, in England." That sounds like a more realistic historical record of how the "Irish Whistle" as an Irish-made musical product came into being, regardless if bone whistles have been found in African caves from 100,000 years ago. I want to see proof of a lineage!

The term "ratty bootleg" comes to mind. "The BootLir whistle. Plays Rat songs for Uncle Sam! Love you long time!". If so, I know where Mao can stick those whistles. Waiting for more information........ and reviews, and their website to be improved, and if any users or Killarney have anything to say, or Irish importing regulators perhaps.

I'm under the impression it's a deceptive Chinese knockoff of the Killarney design,

Before shouting blue murder, you should perhaps remember the Killarney itself isn't exactly an original take on whistle design.

Compare the design by John Sindt and the Killarney. the rattly bootleg in the photo is the one where they didn't put the rivets in:





The marketing speak is bull, but then it often is. Is it Chinese? There's no telling, without knowing who is marketing the Lir.

Let's avoid the whole pitchforks at dawn spiel.

I'm aware of the similarity and differences between the Killarney and the Sindt, and of the many comments by people saying that the Sindt supply line is either "retired" or going in very slow or low volume productivity. I haven't chased that down, so if Sindt is still producing, great, but it doesn't seem to be in near the volume of Killarney. The Killarney is selling in high numbers and has found itself excellent reviews in the slice of the Irish whistle market of high D metal whistle for it's general body style (vs wood, aluminum or plastic whistles). If there is a China (or similar) connection to the Lir, the maker will have noticed the success of Killarney at the core area of Irish whistle sales, the dependably high sales volume of the high D models.

John Sindt does indeed still make and sell whistles.
What I found so far is that it is sold by one particular music store (and those are the same people in charge of the Lír-FB-page). I guess it's something of an outsourced private label work. But like I wrote, it does play nicely. I didn't wanna start a "flame war" or anything. I am much more annoyed by huge music stores (I won't mention no names but it's the biggest in europe) who sell the original and the "fake" or knock-off, too, for a fraction of the price but probably a much bigger margin. I don't think that's what's happening here. And like Mr.Gumby mentioned, if anything it is a Sindt-copy as the Killarney is already a copy in itself, which AFAIK was exactly modelled after the whistles John Sindt sold at the time. And this kind of "copying" is also done elsewhere. Or is it a coincidence that Phil Hardy started kerrywhistles exactly 25 yrs after Overton came up with that design, to make sure any patent (if there ever was one) had expired by that time? And there are patents out there for a "two-piece" design of the mouthpiece, and that patent is not held by Burke. Somebody managed to patent what others have been using for years. I will also not mention who but it is easy to find out when researching whistle related patents in official databases. I myself make square whistles and I am not exactly the first one to do so. Even though I was not really inspired by others as the idea simply occurred to me while seeing the square tubes in the hardware store. But about a second later I also remembered that Nick Metcalf had done something similar. But the Paetzold recorders came even earlier. And there are also square organ pipes. So ...
I just wish all of that would be communicated but it isn't. Not by Killarney, not by Lír, etc. I didn't see the name "John Sindt" on the Killarney-website just as I didn't see it on the Lír-webite. And -- ordering a Sindt-style whistle directly on Taobao or any other Chinese website that sells them, will not be much cheaper than a Killarney or Lír. And they might be just as good, who knows.