In North America, uilleann piping was at it lowest ebb in the 1940s and 50s. It was not until the 1960s, at the time of the folk music revival, that new players began to appear in numbers sufficient to reverse the trend. A small number of pipers had started in the 1920s or 30s and kept at it through the lean years. In their various ways they became resources for the pipers who followed. Patrick (Paddy) O’Neill, who spent much of his life in San Francisco, was such a tradition bearer. O’Neill grew up near Skibbereen, County Cork. In Ireland he played Highland pipes, immigrated to San Francisco in 1926 and began to play uilleann pipes. O’Neill played occasionally with Dan Sullivan, also from Cork, and they were the only active pipers on the West Coast for many years. Starting in the late 1950s young men began to contact him for information about pipes and piping, among them Denis Brooks and Ted Anderson. The number of players on the West Coast began to grow. Paddy O’Neill and Dan Sullivan were among the first, if not the first, to use California-grown cane to make reeds for uilleann pipes.