Michael J. Anderson was well regarded as an uilleann piper and pipe-maker. He is the only pipe-maker to claim apprenticeship with the Taylor brothers of Philadelphia, the best of the 19th century American makers. His efforts to earn a living at pipemaking were not entirely successful, but the quality of Anderson’s pipe-making approaches or equals that of the Taylor brothers. Anderson was born near Ballymote, County Sligo, and came to America around the year 1879. He made his living as a player and maker, mostly in New York where he lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and Pennsylvania, at least from 1901-18. Unusually for his time, in the early 20th century Anderson made at least three extended trips to Ireland, one in 1904 with the unfulfilled intention of establishing himself there as a pipe-maker in Cork. Anderson and fiddle player Michael Coleman were good friends and the latter picked up ”Jackson’s reel” from the piper, among other tunes. Anderson considered Coleman “a genius playing the fiddle” and Coleman is supposed to have regarded Anderson as “the greatest uilleann piper there was.” Anderson returned to Sligo in 1946 and died there the following year. He is buried in Ballymote churchyard.