Louis Noble in the Irish Volunteers

"I, Louis P. Noble Joined The Gaelic League In London In Oct. 1908, and started to learn to play the Warpipes in July 1909. I won the Solo Championship of Ireland at the Rotunda in August, 1910. I was then made Pipe Major of the London Irish Pipers Club. In March, 1914 Michael Collins and Maurice Sheahan came to me at the Pipers Club and asked me to take charge of the drilling and instruction of the First Company of the Irish Volunteers then being formed at the German Gymnasium, St. Pancras Road, London, NW. They knew I held a proficiency Certificate for Drill and Musketry from the English Volunteers. I had in my Company men who were to make history in Ireland, I can remember a number of them: Michael Collins, Maurice Sheahan, Sean Hurley, Sean and E. Nunan, Dan Sheehan, M. Cremins, J. O'Brien, Francis Fitzgerald, Con Crowley, Padraig O'Conaire, Joe and Matt Furlong; there were seventy-seven names on my roll. After the split in volunters I carried out training at Highgate Woods and Hammersmith."

"At this time I was a skilled Workman in the Post Office Engineering Dept., and on the outbreak of the War in 1914 I was put in charge of the Telephones and Telegraphs of the War Office, Admiralty and Air Defences of London, and many a time after drilling and teaching musketry to the Irish Volunteers I would go on duty for the night at Whitehall. Sometime in November 1915 I was reported to my Superintending Engineer, Mr. Moir, by the Secretary of the Admiralty as being dangerous and I was removed out of the War Office and Admiralty and sent to Mayfair Telephone Exchange, where I was so degraded in position and watched and reported on by the men in charge that I decided to resign from the Post Office and give up 13 years pensionable service."

"I left in January 1916 and obtained employment as Works Electrician at C.A. Vandervell & Co., Acton. While there I joined the Works Fire Brigade which left me in a good position to obtain munitions for the Irish Volunteers; being on duty as Electrician Fireman I had access to all stores, and as this firm was making hand grenades and magnetos, I was able to obtain special wire for Art O'Brien to send to Dublin for the construction of wireless instruments. While there I obtained several good revolvers, autos and shotguns from men who had other friends in Farnbrough Air Ship factory. I was at C.A. Vandervell & Co., about two years, then I went to the Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Hendon and Tilbury Docks, His Majesty's Office of Works, Orange St. Westminster, East India Docks and Magneto Time Co., Westminster. While employed I was able to obtain munitions for Art O'Brien and Sean McGrath. In September 1919 I decided to get to Ireland at all costs, so I put all my home into a repository at Hammersmith and then went to Belfast. I stopped there with James McCann, and Art Agnew who was a 1916 man from Liverpool who introduced me to Sean O'Neill, who after writing to Michael Collins about me admitted me into the I.R.A. I was made Adjutant of the Engineers Co. with Andy Furlong as O.C. I carried out training and instruction work with infantry and engineers on Divis Mountain and at Straid, Co. Antrim. While in Belfast I worked in the ship yard and was discharged with other Catholics."

"I then obtained work for the Western Union Cable Co., Valentia Island, Co. Kerry. In Valentia there was no unit of the I.R.A. functioning and all I could do was work with the Pipes, playing at G.A.A. matches and at concerts for national organizations. I completed my work at Valentia before the truce was over and my wife and children and I left Valentia Island by boat for Cork being 19 hours on the sea."

"As soon as I arrived in Dublin I joined 5th Battalion and was posted to No. 2 Company. I was at once ordered to teach drill and attended at Drill Parades at Killester. I was appointed to represent my Company at the Dublin Brigade Conference at 44 Parnell Square. I was on the Freeman Office job and when the split in my company due to the treaty came I took charge of the company at Lourdes Home, Buckingham St. Tom Roche was O.C. then, but he was on munitions and could not attend; when the Four Courts was attacked I reported to Liam O'Doherty at Morans Hotel. I was put in charge of basement kitchen and wine cellar, and took charge of a party to cut holes in the walls in the rear for the retreat. I then went with a party to the Gresham Hotel to Cathal Brugha; there I was engaged in making mines and on ambulance work, and on the fall of these positions I was wounded going to the assistance of Cathal Brugha."

"I was taken prisoner and marched to Amiens St. Station and from there I escaped, and going to St. Vincent Hospital for operation, I was incapacitated for about two months. Later I was able to get a small lodge at Santry and there with J. O'Connor I assisted in making munitions. J. O'Connor was arrested and I looked after tools, material and lathe keeping them safe until I returned them to the owner, George Plunkett."

Louis (seated, fourth from left) as Pipe Major, Irish Army pipe band

"In April, 1924 I joined the National Army as Instructor of Pipe Bands; I applied for Pension but was told that the Act did not apply to me as I was not in the Army in September, 1923; of course I did not give such information as I do here."

Louis Noble

"I finished work at the Valentia Island Cable Station and returned to Dublin and joined the 5th Battalion, Engineers, Irish Republican Army. Then, when the civil war started, I was with my commandant in a number of places, and I was wounded, and my commandant, whose name was Cathal Brugha, he died..., the same volley that I got killed him, and very soon after that when peace was declared I was invited to take charge of the pipers school in the National Army, and I took the job."

"I was in that job for five years, of which four was spent in the Army School of Music, and I had trouble with the German Director of Music, who was no friend of the bagpipes, and I was court martialed and posted to a band that I had formed some years before that, and I was posted to Limerick Barracks. There I went off of a nighttime to see the Germans building the huge power station on the Shannon River, and some rocks went up in the sky and came down and bounced and cracked the shinbone of my right leg, and after many years of trouble with the leg, to come up to this time now, I'm 82 years of age, I had the leg amputated and I'm sitting in a wheelchair telling this story, which is only half a story, I've heaps more to say."

Louis was born near, and grew up in London, England, of Irish parents (someone once told him that if he was born in England, he wasn't Irish, to which he responded "A cat may have kittens in the oven, but they're not biscuits!"), and had an English Accent . He was once challenged that his name didn't sound Irish, and responded that he had a Gaelic name, Luhidgh Mac An Usail (Louis, the son of the nobleman). His accent nearly got him killed several times; some of the taped interview is missing, but I remember these stories from it:

While a member of the I.R.A., but traveling in an Irish district where he was unknown, he was waiting for a train when the local I.R.A. men came and took the mail from the train to censor it. He chuckled, and attracted the attention of the men: "What are you laughing at?" Louis replied "Just watching the boys do their job." Upon hearing his accent, they jumped him, and they started marching him away under guard; he realized they meant to shoot him. He said "Take me to the school house." It meant nothing to them. "Take me to Pat Palmer [the local school master, and I.R.A. leader]". "Oh, you know Pat Palmer?" and the matter was soon cleared up without further incident.

Another time he was visiting an old friend (also I.R.A. in another district) he hadn't seen for quite some time. The man was a tailor, and when Louis entered his shop and greeted him, the man didn't show recognition and put his hand under the table. Louis said "Don't you remember Louis the piper?" The man responded "Oh, Louis Noble! I thought you were a British detective!", and brought out his hand and showed a pistol he had ready under the table; another close call!

Louis and the pipes

Back to biography, from Louis' autobiographical notebook