Bagpipes take diocesan priest halfway around the world

Playing bagpipes for 13 years took Father Jared Brogan halfway around the world, led to TV appearances

MOUNTAIN LAKES  Anticipation mounts as the drummers tap out a crisp roll off. Then, the bagpipers play a low bass drone, before taking a breath to begin the plaintive wail of an old Irish favorite, such as “Minstrel Boy.” The music swells as the pipe band marches past a cheering crowd on a city street in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade — a thrill that Father Jared Brogan, a diocesan priest, had known for 13 years, while playing the bagpipes in two renowned pipe bands in New York City.

The sweet sounds of St. Patrick’s Day, which the world celebrates today March 17, still ring in the ears and heart of Father Brogan, now the administrator of St. Catherine of Siena Parish here. The Brooklyn native smiles when remembering the excitement of performing pipe band music in most types of events in the Tri-State Area — from parades, concerts, and festivals to weddings, funerals, birthday parties and even bar mitzvahs. He loved playing a wide variety of tunes, such as “Amazing Grace” and “Scotland the Brave,” on his bagpipes that have carried him halfway around the world — to a global music competition in Scotland — and to extraordinary experiences — like serenading a U.S. president on late-night TV.

“I’m amazed at all the places that I’ve traveled, all the things that I’ve done and all the people I’ve met playing the bagpipes. I could never have imaged that I would have made something of it,” said the 36-year-old priest, who performed with two highly regarded musical outfits, the N.Y. City Department of Corrections Pipe Band and the Monaghan Pipe Band, before stepping away from his pipes in 2005 to pursue the priesthood.

From the start, playing the bagpipes seemed to resonate with Father Brogan. No one in his family played but he heard them at many cultural events throughout his Irish Catholic upbringing. At 12 years old, he started taking lessons from Bob Hanley, a member of the Knights of Columbus in his neighborhood of Marine Park, Brooklyn, who offered instruction to local kids, the priest said.

“I took to it, loved it and realized that I was good at it,” said Father Brogan, who joined the N.Y. Department of Corrections Pipe Band in 1993 when he was 14. “Here I was this teen-ager playing bagpipes next to these bruising prison guards, but it was a wonderful experience,” he said with a chuckle.

Father Brogan also experienced the thrill of notching victories in local Grade Four competitions with the N.Y. Department of Corrections Pipe Band, which also played an international competition in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1999. The young man left the group that year to hone his skills playing solo bagpipes.

A year later, Father Brogan joined the Monaghan Pipe Band, one of the oldest pipe bands in the U.S., which traces its origins back to 1929. The group ranked high in international competitions, which took its players to almost every state in the country and up to Ontario and Quebec in Canada. He competed as a soloist and with the band. Judges evaluate players on the quality of their tone and how well they perform as an ensemble, he said.

The Monaghan Pipe Band geared up for its April to October performance season by requiring its musicians to commit to a demanding schedule of rehearsals twice a week — both with the entire band and with their individual instrument sections. If that were not enough, the industrious Father Brogan also practiced at home an hour or two each day.

“I wanted to play the best that I could,” said Father Brogan, who parlayed his considerable musical experience into a part-time job, while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in speech communication from St. Joseph’s College, Brooklyn, by offering individual and band bagpipe instruction.

Playing the bagpipes at such a high level opened doors, both figuratively and literally, to venues usually not available to groups that play that style of music. Once, he had the thrill of playing in front of thousands of people in Madison Square Garden as a “warm-up” act before one of rock star Rod Stewart’s concerts. The Monaghan Pipe Band also appeared on TV — playing on the MTV show “Total Request Live” on a St. Patrick’s Day in Times Square and serenading President George W. Bush on “The David Letterman Show,” Father Brogan said.

Playing in the Monaghan Pipe Band also helped open a bit wider the doors to Father Brogan’s future vocation as a priest, when one of its musicians, Lachlan Cameron, left to enter the seminary. Today, he serves as a priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in N.Y. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the drumbeat of God’s call to priesthood grew so loud, that Father Brogan could not longer ignore it, he told The Beacon in 2009.

“When Lachlan announced that he was entering the seminary, I took him aside and told him that I was thinking the same thing: that I had a calling,” said Father Brogan, who then was studying for a master’s degree in speech language pathology at New York University.

Later, Father Brogan worked as a speech language pathologist for N.Y. City Depart­ment of Education. In 2005, Father Brogan stepped away from his bagpipes to enter the Theological College, the National Sem­inary of the Catholic University of America in Washington. Bishop Serratelli ordained as priest of the Paterson Diocese in 2011.

Occasionally, Father Brogan, also a co-director of diocesan vocations, dusts off his pipes to play at the parishes he served. As a seminarian, he played for the feast of the patron of St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, Morristown. As a parochial vicar, he performed at St. Patrick’s Day events at St. Philip the Apostle Parish, Clifton.

“Faith and culture are connected. Music — a part of that culture — brings people together and is a way for people to encounter God. The Lord reveals himself in beautiful things and music is beautiful,” said Father Brogan, who admitted that he temporarily stashed his bagpipes and uniform, which includes a black, blue and grey kilt, at his parent’s house in Brooklyn. “Most people at St. Catherine’s don’t know that I play bagpipes, but I’m sure that, after they see this article, they will be asking me to play.”