The Piedpiper theory is also wishful thinking.

Over a lifetime of observation I notice that as soon as a visitor to - in pre Chieftains days - Ireland heard a piper, they became hellbent on getting a set. Very soon playing the thing - in their own way OC - there would be all kinds of theories about the origins of the instrument and the rest. IOW I have witnessed this debate before many a time.

OBU's comments about the Travellers - to me at least - is just nonsense. It ain't true OBU, somebody is telling you lies.

The asserted Scottish origin for the instrument itself sounds to me like a get-even strategy for the old joke that used go the rounds about how the Irish gave the Highlanders the Pibmor, - saying 'you can make music on that ' ... ho ho ho(which I don't think is funny)

However it is simply NOT true that the native pipes were thrown away and replaced by a Scottish import! It did not happen. What did happen is far simpler and easier to comprehend; playing the loud Pipes being a crime the Piper/makers set about narrowing the bore - if you know anything about this I hardly need explain .. if not go ask somebody that does - and fiddling about with designs to make the instrument quieter. IOW They DID NOT plan to build the elbow pipes. It was a response to new laws.

The bellows; the real story here - what may have compelled the researching pipemaker perhaps more than anything else to use a bellows, is the ammount of air necessary to power the lower pitched instrument. Now that forced some kind of accomodation, but saying the Irish pipemaker copied a Scottish bellows is simply nonsense; why would he? there were bellows hanging on the 'hob' of every cottage in the country!

Nonanglohistory.

The bagpipe is found in Galicia and it was from there that the Gaelic people began their migration to the Island of Ireland BEFORE there ever was a Scotland. Arriving in Ireland these people already had the bagpipes. When after thousands of years the Gaels invaded the Highland of Scotland they brought with them these same bagpipes; despite English propaganda for hundreds of years denying the facts, the Bagpipe that is played today in Scotland - joke or no joke- came from
Ireland.