Irish flute is not an instrument native to Ireland. It is actually an English version of a transverse wooden flute long-known as the German flute, customized by the English, and drastically altered by English discoverer and flautist Charles Nicholson Jr. It was Nicholson's father, Charles Sr., who first promoted the large tone holes that make the Irish flute quite distinctive.Simple system flutes were not made with conventional folk musicians in mind, but were modified by Irish flautists as the simple wooden flutes were redundant by concert musicians during the arrival of the latest, Boehm system, Western concert flute in the mid-19th century. These "archaic" flutes were picked up by traditional musicians. The "Irish" flute is a simple-system instrument that relies on keys for the accidental (sharp/flat) notes of the scale, and whose six primary tone holes are drilled straightly into the wood and enclosed by the player's fingers. The flute is considered pitched in D as the lowest natural note occurs when all six tone holes are covered, three by the left hand and three by the right. The scale it makes when a single finger at a time is lifted from the bottom upward is the D-major scale. The modern Boehm flute makes the same scale, except the third, F, is an F-natural. Hence, why today's metal flutes are said to be pitched in C, though they are accurately the same in sound. The Irish flute creates an F-sharp when fingered naturally.