Irish Folklore Research Articles

Old Faces, New Perspectives: A Critical Examination of the Mother and Crone in Cartoon Saloon’s Irish Folklore Trilogy

Old Faces, New Perspectives: A Critical Examination of the Mother and Crone in Cartoon Saloon’s Irish Folklore Trilogy

“Irish Folklore Has Always Interested and Influenced Me”: An Interview with Deirdre Sullivan

Deirdre Sullivan is an award-winning Irish YA writer who has been praised by several writers and folklore academics, such as Jack Zipes, for her fairy-tale revisions and her rewriting of the Irish legend “The Children of Lir”. Following the steps of contemporary feminist writers like Angela Carter or Emma Donoghue, Sullivan gives voice to minorities and deals with silenced topics such as sexual harassment. This interview focuses on her subversions of fairy tales and Irish mythology, especially in her collection Tangleweed and Brine (2017) and her revision of “The Children of Lir” in Savage Her Reply (2020). In this interview, Deirdre Sullivan talks about her interest in fairy tales and Irish folklore and how she became a writer.

Self-collection of folklore by Irish schoolchildren: strategies and outcomes

ABSTRACT The Schools’ Scheme of 1937/8, initiated by the Irish Folklore Commission, was an almost unprecedented experiment. Not only did it contribute to one of the biggest collections of folklore in Europe, but it also arguably boosted the cultural development of children and created a catalyst for the intergenerational transmission of tales. Children from 26 counties collected folk materials on 55 topics indicated in the questionnaires Irish Folklore and Tradition and Béaloideas Éireann (1937). This paper provides a short review of strategies employed by children in their attempts to collect unstructured cultural texts through probable self-collection. It shows how the two questionnaires had an overwhelming influence on the resultant texts stored in the National Folklore Collection of Ireland at University College Dublin. The author employs a philological approach to folklore texts. Their form is analysed along with the contexts of creation (both immediate and wider ones).

Yeats as a Folklorist: The Celtic Twilight and the Irish Folklore

W.B. Yeats had a key role in the Irish folklore. Before writing his masterpieces, often arising froman original encounter between folklore and literature, the young Yeats was directly concerned withthe collecting of folklore. Initially he had worked as an editor, drawing his material from a varietyof XIX century’s narrative collections; however, through this editing he had already sketched hisown idea of folklore. With his later work, The Celtic Twilight, Yeats became a first-hand collector,thus acting as a folklorist. A singular kind of folklorist, indeed, who addressed his materialaccording to views and goals quite distant from the canonical approach of an ethnographic research.His was the approach of a writer seeking in folklore a different kind of literature. Hence, are welegitimized to regard Yeats as a folklorist? How to evaluate his unorthodox methodology? Was hisapproach unsuitable? Or, perhaps, by treating his material as a dynamic, living issue, rather than astatic, outdated item, was this approach more fitting for understanding folklore? These are somequestions I discuss in my paper, so as to develop a critical reassessment of the concept of folklore,its methods and aims.

The Sick Call and the Drama of Extreme Unction in Irish Folklore

This article examines the priest's sick call in Irish folklore. The sick call normally involved the hearing of the dying person's confession; the administration of extreme unction, the last sacrament that a Roman Catholic was expected to receive; and (if possible) the reception of holy communion, viaticum, food for the journey. Drawing from the large body of stories in the Schools’ Collection (gathered in 1937–8), the article shows how the greatest concern in the popular mindset was ensuring that the priest arrived in time to perform his duties. However, all manner of difficulties awaited him in the exercise of this ministry, from diabolical apparitions to the wiles of other humans, including other priests, who purposefully attempted to thwart his path. In this sense, Irish folk tales dramatize the administration of this sacrament into a rite of passage.

A Mysticism Approach to Yeats Byzantium

William Butler Yeats is the most famous poet in the history of modern Irish literature. He is called the greatest poet of our time by T.S Eliot. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. He has a strong interest in mysticism and has made unremitting exploration of it throughout his life. Mysticism is an important source of Yeatss life creation. From the early collection of Irish folklore and mythology to the formation of the later mysterious system, Yeats constructed his own set of mythological systems. Yeats mysticism is particularly evident in his poem Byzantium. His poems are full of mystery due to the combination of Irish folk mythology, Swedish mysticism philosophy, Judaism and Christian doctrine, Indian Buddhist thought, ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian mythology and other factors. Among them, his poems are famous for the symbol of Oriental mysticism. This paper makes a detailed interpretation of Byzantine and then implements the analysis of this masterpiece in each section. Based on this analysis, this paper focuses on the interpretation of mysticism in poetry and its impact in order to achieve a better understanding of the mysticism embodied in poetry and provide a valuable reference for future research on related issues.

'Rory Gallagher's Leprechaun Boogie': Irish Stereotyping in the International Music Press

This paper seeks to explore the presence of Irish stereotyping in the international music press using a case study of the Irish blues rock musician Rory Gallagher. Using a dataset of 600 articles about Gallagher published between 1968 and 1998, it draws upon a combination of corpus and thematic analysis to identify frequently occurring Irish stereotypes and how they were used to describe him, embedding arguments in postcolonial theory, particularly the work of Homi K. Bhabha. The analysis identifies five major themes—the Irish as violent troublemakers; the Irish as heavy drinkers; the ‘Irish’ way of talking; the Irish as ‘dumb Paddys’; Irish folklore and traditional ways of life—highlighting the different roles into which Gallagher was unwillingly cast by the music press. These references often wrapped Irish prejudice in a cloak of fun and frivolity, which made it seem harmless and trivial. However, such disparagement humour fostered discrimination by moulding (negative) public opinion of what it meant to be Irish at a time when Anglo-Irish tensions were already high and ignored the deeply emotional impact of the Northern Irish conflict on Gallagher. It also took attention away from Gallagher’s music and, in doing so, downplayed the important contribution he made to the world of blues and rock. Keywords: Rory Gallagher; music press; Irish; Ireland; stereotypes; disparagement humour; postcolonialism

Exploring the Food-Related Intangible Cultural Heritage of Bealtaine (May Day) within the Irish Folklore Commission’s Schools’ Collection Digital Archive

In 1937-1938, the Irish Folklore Commission ran the Schools’ Collection Folklore Project, where 50,000 schoolchildren became folklore collectors. This paper argues for a better understanding of Irish food as intangible cultural heritage, and champions the application of a food perspective among Irish studies scholars. Using the online digitised Schools’ Folklore Collection (dúchas.ie), this paper explores food traditions associated with Bealtaine or May Day, one of the four quarter days of the Irish calendar year. Drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper finally champions the growing digitisation of archives for broader global accessibility.

‘Her own and her children's share’: luck, misogyny and imaginative resistance in twentieth-century Irish folklore

AbstractIn twentieth-century Irish folklore, luck had much to do with women. While women were rarely seen as legitimate possessors of good fortune, luck was frequently perceived as being communicated through women's bodies and lost as a result of their actions. A caul, an intact amniotic membrane over a newborn's head and by-product of a pregnant woman's body, was believed to convey luck and health to either the mother or the child but not to both. The emphasis in this tradition on women's corporeality cast women and their maternal by-products as appropriable familial and communal resources. This and additional lore reveal that women were constructed as dangerous, ‘object-like others’ whose mere presence could threaten men's safety. Twentieth-century Ireland's folk and political cultures each operated within frameworks of supporting ideological systems. Despite being easily distinguishable in articulation, these cultures were frequently in concert with one another, especially relating to prescriptive gender roles. In numerous instances, lore about luck bolstered legislative, social and religious policies of the Irish Free State and the early Irish Republic regarding women. However, narrow divergences allowed women limited space to contest gender hierarchy in folk communities. Some women found opportunities for subversion in the very cultural fabric that restricted them, resorting to imaginative resistance to reject and counter misogynist discourse and assert female subjectivity.

Features of Irish Dance Music

"The focus of this paper is to bring into light the traditional categories of Irish dance music, emphasizing the musical characteristics that differentiate them. Energetic and effervescent, Irish dance music is rarely analyzed, with Irish folklore lacking a school of dedicated musicologists. The topic of this article is important in the context of the tensions related to globalization, commodification, and transformations in Irish Traditional Music, that scholars are examining. The paper includes musical examples of the traditional Irish dance music categories, for a better view of the phenomenon. Keywords: Irish music, dance music, ethnomusicology. "

An investigation into the food related traditions associated with the Christmas period in Rural Ireland

ABSTRACT The interdisciplinary nature of food studies lends itself to the study of food through many avenues, most notably in this research, through folklore and the oral history transcripts of the Schools’ Collection made by the Irish Folklore Commission in 1937–1938. Folklore can give us an insight into sometimes overlooked features of society and how people’s lives can be studied and highlighted through their relationship with food. The Christmas period was an extremely important time in Irish tradition, and food was a main aspect of that celebration. This paper, therefore, at first delves into the literature surrounding Christmas, folklore, and food; diet and social class; gender, and food in rural Ireland, before comparing it with the oral history transcripts of the National Folklore Collection’s online archive, to unearth a better understanding of the relationship and the role of food in the Christmas festival in Ireland’s recent past.

When Narrative Becomes Theatrical

ABSTRACT Storytelling is an integral component of Irish tradition, folklore, and culture. Ireland's rich narrative tradition can be traced back to the early oral act of storytelling, undertaken by the seanchaí (storyteller or historian). Despite the wide spectrum of studies and broadly ranging arguments on storytelling in general and other specific aspects, in Irish drama narrative and the monologue, as well as narrative levels and types of narrators, have never been analyzed. In narratological terms Irish drama is rich with various degrees of diegetic narrativity employed differently by its various playwrights. This article looks more closely into a subject that until now has not received attention in the context of Irish theatre. In Irish theatre, in which language, narrative, and storytelling are recurrent topics, it is crucial that we understand how narrative is more complicated than the simple telling of a story and that it possesses techniques and levels that are worth reflecting on for their ability to change nuance and the experience of the audience.

Yeats’s Theories on Spirituality in “Magic,” “Swedenborg, Mediums, and the Desolate Places,” Per Amica Silentia Lunae, and A Vision

This essay aims to look into Yeats’s theories on spirituality in his four essays: “Magic,” “Swedenborg, Mediums, and the Desolate Places,” Per Amica Silentia Lunae, and A Vision. Before moving on to the main discussion, this article briefly examines the several factors that helped shaped Yeats’s thoughts on spirituality, not least of which was his exposure to folklore and his father’s repudiation of established religions. Such childhood influences led Yeats to join first the Theosophical Society and then the Golden Dawn in search of alternative forms of spirituality. It also contributes to Yeats’s unique theories on spirituality that is based on Irish traditions such as Irish folklore and legends. Then, this essay discusses Yeats’s prose writings, starting from his 1901 essay, “Magic” to A Vision, which can be considered as the culmination of his lifelong search for spirituality in order to talk about how Yeats tried to formulate his thoughts on spirituality over time.

“Talking of the Fairy Road”: Modulations of the Seanchaí in Conor McPherson’s The Weir

Focusing on The Weir (1999), one of Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s masterpieces, this study attempts to elaborate the ways in which the Irish traditional seanchai is mirrored in this play. A seanchai is an Irish traditional storyteller, who has always been one of the most prevalent features of Irish folklore and which has recently been revived by Irish playwrights. In The Weir, McPherson incorporates the old seanchai tradition and places it within modern human contexts. Except for one, each of the characters of the play is playing the role of a seanchai, which is manipulated by McPherson not only to depict a popular Irish tradition but also to present human interior feelings of fear, trauma, and desolation. This paper testifies to the enduring importance of the role of Irish traditional seanchai, which has adapted and survived over modernization. The analysis aims not just to understand the ways in which the play uses the seanchais’ techniques but also explores the significance of the stories narrated by each of these seanchais in the play. The Irish seanchai tradition is known for its eloquence. Likewise, seanchais in The Weir expressively narrate their stories to generate gorgeous, realistic, and sometimes tragic form of drama, which reflects an artfulness that renders this play distinct amongst other plays.

Collecting the Folklore of Ireland: The Schoolchildren’s Contribution

Two years after its establishment in 1935 with the remit to ‘collect, preserve and publish’ the folklore of Ireland, the Irish Folklore Commission (Coimisiun Bealoideasa Eireann) (1935–70) organized a major collecting scheme involving the senior pupils and their teachers in the national (primary) schools in Ireland. The project, conducted during the years 1937–38, was very ambitious in both scope and objectives, and was also immensely productive. This article examines its genesis, operation, and results, set against political and cultural exigencies of the time. The article also assesses subsequent collecting initiatives focused on schools, such as that organized by the Committee on Ulster Folklife and Traditions for schools throughout Northern Ireland in 1955–57, and, later, sponsored folklore competitions for schools, some held on an all-Ireland basis, to commemorate the fortieth and fiftieth anniversaries, respectively, of the ground-breaking 1937–38 scheme.

Neighborliness and Decency, Witchcraft and Famine: Reflections on Community from Irish Folklore

Abstract Many examples of Irish folklore reflect and instill enduring conceptions about the workings, vulnerability, and viability of community, which is understood to be a doing, a project in need of continual maintenance. Arguably, there has been no more devastating blow to the vernacular understanding of community as social contract for mutual support than the mid-nineteenth-century Famine in Ireland. If folklore provides models for contemplating and reproducing ideas about how community may be enacted, it also bears witness to the haunting consequences of abandoning community.

Endeavour and Responsibility of the Historian – Creating an Archive of Ego Documents in Regions of Highly Contested Memories

The Irish folklore collection is a national social archive and has been an important focal point and a stabilizing influence on the development of the Irish collective identity after the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922. This historic blueprint has been adapted and modified to fulfill a similar role in the emerging collective identity of South Tyrol in Northern Italy, where a challenging minority issue was pacified through far-reaching concessions and a regional political and cultural autonomy. This contribution outlines that establishing a social archive in this area of contested memories and conflicting interpretations of the history of the 20th century poses many challenges to the historian, ranging from the respect for individual recollections to the adoption of internationally accepted interpretations of the Fascist past in Germany and Italy. It concludes that despite these challenges, a social archive might be the appropriate instrument to foster reconciliation and mutual understanding.

“But One Generation Removed from Extinction”: Folklore Studies and the Mitigation of Precarity

Conditions of precarity are those in which the overwhelming needs of the present override the ability of a person, community, or state to materially anticipate or account for the future. Precarity can be fiscal, social, or political, and often more than one of these at a time. Folklorists have very rarely taken precarity per se as a topic of interest, but folklore both as an academic discipline and as a form of popular expression has been driven since its origins to mitigate precarity. This article reflects on three important moments in the history of folklore: the work of the Grimms, the Finnish nationalist movement, and the Irish Folklore Commission, and addresses how each of them was motivated by the desire to manage and mitigate precarity among vulnerable communities. Then, it reviews the impact of the Hampton Folklore Society and outlines how its engagements with the American Folklore Society foreshadow contemporary tensions in folklore.

Worry Work: The Supernatural Labours of Living and Dead Mothers in Irish Folklore*

Worry Work: The Supernatural Labours of Living and Dead Mothers in Irish Folklore*

A return to sources: the folk life legacy of Eric R. Cregeen

ABSTRACT Eric R. Cregeen (1921–83) was described in 2005 by the Historiographer Royal of Scotland as ‘a social scientist of the highest order … a very fine historian and a very fine anthropologist … far in advance of this time … no one since has put the two disciplines together so effectively to illuminate the life of the Highlands.’ (Professor T. C. Smout, University of St Andrew’s). This paper gives a short biography of Cregeen’s life and follows his career that earned him the highest acclaim among scholars of folklore, folklife and language, as well as social, economic and oral history. Benefitting from training from the Irish Folklore Commission, and fieldwork experience in the Manx Museum, he moved to Scotland in 1954. Cregeen devoted the rest of his life to documenting traditions of the West Highlands, leaving a legacy of recordings and journals which now provide a rich resource for further research.