Check out history of Scottish bagpipes,you will find they have been around a lot longer than the Uillean pipes.

I am sure you are correct on this. I started a thread years ago when I realised that the Uillean pipes need a fair degree of technology, ie post Industrial Revolution type technology, to make a set. I guess I could dig it out at a push.

The Uillean pipes are pretty modern. I have little doubt that simple blown bagpipes go back a long way. A sheep or goat's stomach and various wooden pipes would get a pretty good bag pipe in the right hands.

Belows blown seem a good bit more complicated and Highland Pipes perhaps fall between the two. I don't know why I am rambling on it will all be known and available through Google.

Although their is clearly a connection between Ireland Scotland, Brittany, Spain, various celtic languages, bagpipes and tunes lots of people who join in the 'discussions' have a confused grasp of time scales and events.

I have just read about half of 'The Origins of the British by Stephen Oppenheimer'. It's academic but readable. It's mostly concerned with language and genes but it gives a good account of who got here when and how they moved about. This kind of background makes it easy to test ideas about tunes and so on.

Cheers

Les