page_title: Band of the Irish Guards
section_title: Drums and Pipes
hierarchical_section_title: Band of the Irish Guards / Drums and Pipes
caption_attribution_description: London - April 2009
context_page_description: b
  The Band of the Irish Guards is one of five bands in the Foot Guards Regiments in the Household Division whose main role is to guard the British monarch. The Band supports the Regiment by providing the musical backing to which much of the ceremonial duties depend within Central London.
  Unlike the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, which moves to various duty stations around the world, the Band is based permanently at Wellington Barracks in St James's, London.
context_section_description: Like the Scots Guards, the Irish Guards also boast a distinctive national feature in their pipe band. Uniquely in the British Army, the Irish Guards ensemble is referred to as the "Drums and Pipes," rather than the "Pipes and Drums." (Since drums were carried by British soldiers before pipes, the drums are senior.) They were formed during the First World War, with the first two sets of Great Irish Warpipes being donated by John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, whose son was serving with the regiment as an officer. They were trained by the London Irish Rifles and adopted their pattern of uniform, including the practice of wearing the caubeen badge over the right eye. Unlike the regimental band, pipe bands are based at battalion level, and when additional battalions are raised for wartime service, pipe bands are also raised to accompany them. (See list of pipe majors below.)
  For several decades, Irish Guards pipers carried the Great Irish Warpipes, essentially a two-drone version of the three-drone Great Highland Bagpipe. In 1968, however, with the forming of the North Irish Brigade into the Royal Irish Rangers, the Highland pipe was standardized throughout the British Army and has been used by the Irish Guards ever since.
  Members of the regimental band are full-time musicians who, in the past, used to be trained for duty as medical assistants in wartime. Since the introduction of Clinical Governance regulations within the NHS, however, military musicians are deployed in a General Duties role.
  Pipers and drummers have always been full-time soldiers who undertake their musical responsibilities on a part-time basis. This was underlined by the loss of two regimental pipers, Lance Corporals Ian Keith Malone and Christopher Muzvuru, during Operation Telic in Iraq. Later, in 2007, Lance Sergeant Chris Casey and Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath, both drummers in the pipe band, were killed in Iraq when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED).
caption: The Pipes and Drums of the Irish Guards, 2009.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S3 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:04:24 11:24:07", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6705", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:04:24 11:24:07", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:04:24 11:24:07", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "245/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "80", "EXIF FocalLength": "207/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2816", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1584", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2816", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1584", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2772", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "112640/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1584000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}