Well, the way I heard it is that Packy Og O'Scuid invented the Uilleann Pipes on July 8th, 1625 at 8 pm, when his wife Peggy belted him in the head with the bellows from the fire. A lightbulb went off in his head, remarkable so many years before Tomas Edison's cook invented the light bulb as a joke, and as I was saying Packy suddunly realized that he could drink and play at the same time if instead of getting belted in the head with bellows, he could belt bellows around his waist and play the pipes. Shortly there after (fourty years to be exact) he finnally made a playable reed, and well, then having nothing else challenging before him, he stole a bunch of chanters from pipers of varrious sizes (the key one played in in the 17th cent, was determined by the size of the piper not the pipes, which were fitted to the piper) slapped some keys on them and invented regulaters, called regulators because now pipers of any size could play one set of pipes, now in the key of Gee Wiz. After a particulary heavy rain, the pipes swelled up to D (short for damn but these effin pipes is wet, Peg) and well, Paddy Keenan was sure to follow. So, then came the diddle dahs and the fiddley gees and Seamus Ennis, and all, not to mention Michael Comba O'Sullivan and Tomas Edison's pixie dust machine.
Eventualy Seth Galligher invented the playable set of pipes, so that playing was not based on the wittleing skill of the player but on solid German rules of craft, mass production on a tiny scale and you should try his flutes as well, but keep his chanters away from Tim Britton and I will say no more about that, except that a good pakistani dinner can be had in Jackson hights for much less than the price of a set of Uilleann pipes, washed down with a dram of whiskey and well, the rest is silence.
I hope this helps, what was the question again?
Larry