“The Vocative Case on People’s Mouths”: The Irish Folklore Commission and Illiterate Linguistics

Abstract

Seán Mac Criomhthain (1875 – 1955) is not to be confused with Seán Ó Criomhthain, author of Lá Dár Saol and son of Tomás Ó Criomhthain whose famous chronicle of life on the Great Blasket Island was published under the title An tOileánach. Mac Criomhthain’s importance stems rather from his mastery of the oral tradition which led Seosamh Ó Dálaigh to place him on a par with Peig Sayers as two of the best informants he had encountered. Ó Dálaigh himself was one of the most prolific collectors of the Irish Folkore Commission whose contribution to what is now the National Folkore Collection must be considered as one of the great cultural achievements of Irish history. Nonetheless, the institutional frames influencing the collection process meant that ultimately the IFC lacked what Ó Giolláin calls an “reflexive ethnology” (141), and this issue therefore merits some discussion. The present paper is intended to advance the discussion with reference to the presence, or not, of linguistic essentialism on the part of the Irish state as well of other sectors of society, taking as central texts Seán Ó Riada’s famous poem “Fill Arís” as well as a recently completed critical edition of Seán Mac Criomhthain’s folkloric repertoire.