Charles O’Donnell was a local amateur uilleann piper in Indianapolis, Indiana, active at least from 1907 to 1936. He was born in or near Thurles, County Tipperary in 1854, emigrated to the US when a teenager and was in Indianapolis by 1876. There, he was a cooper or barrel-maker by trade at an enormous meat packing factory. O’Donnell was considered “an expert in Irish lore” and played in public at entertainments and concerts. Almost all his appearances were for Irish cultural organizations. A newspaper article in 1918 says “The bagpipe which Mr. O’Donnell uses was made almost entirely by himself….” A grandson gave the set to the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, in 1994. The set looks remarkably like the work of the Taylor brothers of Philadelphia, although the chanter seems made by a “less experienced hand”. O’Donnell died at his home on Oxford Street, Indianapolis in 1949.