Despite the implication of this commonly used name, the Irish flute is not an instrument indigenous to Ireland. The simple system, conical-bore flute is what people played before the advent of the modern, Boehm system, Western concert flute in the mid-19th century. Simple-system flutes are usually made of wood (cocus, grenadilla (African blackwood), rosewood, ebony, etc.). There were several manufacturers of this type of flute, among whom was English inventor and flautist Charles Nicholson Jr, who developed a radically improved version of the transverse wooden flute.