G'day,

Actually, Kat is right in saying some replicas of ancient Irish instruments sound like didges. There were a lot of Bronze Age, metal tubular instruments found, for which nobody has ever found any convincing mouthpieces. There is a belief that these were, indeed, played like the didgeridoo ... and I remember seeing an Irish couple demonstrate them at the Australian Museum.

I don't see any reason to reject this theory, but:

This doesn't mean the Irish invented the didgeridoo, since the Australian Aborigines have had at least 60,000 years of acquaintance with termited eucalypt branches. (Human ingenuity is pretty well universal ... I'm reminded of "boomerangs" found among children's toys in Egyptian tombs ... as well as quite functional light wood 'gliders'!)

This doesn't mean that the recent Irish 'folk etymolgy' Gaelic name ever applied to the Bronze Age Irish instruments ... nothing being known of them until they were dug out of the bogs.

Regards,

Bob Bolton