Paul Leech was born and lives in Dublin, Ireland. He comes from a well known family of musicians and entertainers.
He started to play the whistle at the age of five and moved quickly onto the Uilleann pipes on which he was an All-Ireland Champion for 3 years. This is the highest honor awarded to any Irish musician in Ireland.
Paul is classed as one of Ireland’s best uilleann piper. He has been seen and heard on many TV and radio stations both in Ireland and abroad. He has entertained audiences in over 20 countries including America, Spain, Estonia, and France and all over Scandinavia.
Paul has also played percussions for many years with a lot of top pop and folk/rock bands.
Uilleann is the Irish for elbow and hence the method of playing them with a bellow under the arm, as opposed to blowing into them like the Scottish pipes.
Paul’s pipes were made by a master uilleann pipe maker from Belgium now living in Ireland called Arie De Keyzer as you will note from this set of pipes. There are 4 rows of regulators as opposed to the normal row of 3 which were designed by Paul and Arie. There are original and unique to these pipes. They are made from African Black wood, ivory and silver.
When Paul is not on stage he likes nothing better to jump out of airplanes at about 14-15,000 feet (skydiving of course). He does have a good rig on his back – he is not that mad yet!!! But like all uilleann pipers, he is known to let the hair down now and again and go crazy (and boy do we all like to be around when that happens). One of Paul’s well known pieces he plays is the “Lonesome Boatman” which will be available on this web site very soon, so keep watching this space.