the.com/penny whistle

means A simple six-holed metal flute, cheap to buy and easy to start on, that became the backbone instrument of Irish traditional music.

from The name is plain working-class description, not poetry: 'penny' for its original cost — these were mass-produced tin flutes sold cheap, sometimes literally for a penny, once industrial tinplate manufacturing made them affordable in the 1800s — and 'whistle' for how it's played, blown through a fipple mouthpiece rather than across a hole like an orchestral flute. It's also called the 'tin whistle,' and English manufacturers like Clarke's began mass-producing them in the 19th century. Irish traditional musicians adopted the cheap, portable instrument so thoroughly that its working-class, pocket-change origins now sit oddly alongside its status as a serious folk instrument.