learn to play irish tin whistle

I have a beautiful tin whistle I bought at Song of the Sea in Bar Harbor. Now the only thing left to do is…play it! I find myself embarrassed by the prospect of practicing in the house, where the family will hear me. This is different from learning to play the flute when I was a kid. And you can’t play a tin whistle timidly; you really need to play like you mean it. If I am going to set a baby-step goal for myself, I suppose I could start with getting a single strong, on-key note out of the whistle every day.