To answer Sheila: all the skilled musicians I have heard talking about them call them ILL-uhn.

To the group: thanks for this thread, I was idly following it as a curiosity. Yesterday I got to see Paddy Keenan at a festival. I didn't realize what a big deal he was at the time. It was really gratifying and impressive to hear a Piper with a capital P. I'm afraid our heat, humidity and airconditioning were giving his poor instruments fits. I was struck by the no-big-deal attitude behind the great skill, and the giant hands of the man, they looked like my gramps' and like farmers and fishermen sometimes have.

I brought some neophytes to the festival and they were asking me about wooden instruments--the length of pennywhistles but made of wood, thick like recorders. Are these just called 'whistles' as well as the narrow metal things or do they have their own names? I just had never paid attention to them before and I didn't have a clue.