The number of persons who can tell the seanscéal (mӓrchen) is gradually being reduced; and soon but few remain to recount in traditional style this once popular type of folktale. Séamus Ó Duilearga, The Gaelic Storyteller With this thought in mind, much energy was spent in the early days of the Irish Folklore Commission on … Continue reading Organising Folktales
Archival collections do not have to be large to be of historical value and the small collection of Eugene Downing is a great example of this. Downing's papers consist of only 15 items but they give us an insight into the life of an Irish man who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Downing (wearing … Continue reading ‘A Homeland Free of Foreign Invaders’
Over the course of his career, artist Harry Kernoff (1900 - 1974) produced three books of woodcuts, filled with striking black and white prints. Born in London in 1900, Kernoff was the eldest son of Isaac and Kate Kernoff, Russian-Jewish migrants who had moved to Britain from Vitebsk, then part of Russia, now Belarus. The … Continue reading Harry Kernoff’s Woodcuts
The Protestant ascendancy, and members of the wealthy upper middle classes, have tended to dominate in discussions of the Protestants of independent Ireland, with little knowledge of the cultural or folk aspects of Protestants’ identity and behaviour or of the socio-economic diversity of Irish Protestants. In particular, the experiences of rural and urban working-class Protestants … Continue reading Culture and Tradition and the Protestants of Independent Ireland
This addition to our Decade of Centenaries series is quite unusual and not very well known. From November 1922 until January 1923 there was a flurry of correspondence between Desmond FitzGerald, Irish Pro-Treaty Minister of External Affairs, and Mark Sturgis, Irish Colonial Office, concerning the establishment of an internment camp for Republican prisoners on the … Continue reading DOC Series: Interned on St Helena
The Franciscan Book Collection at UCD Library Special Collections In 2000 the Irish Franciscans (Order of Friars Minor: OFM) and University College Dublin (UCD) agreed a legal partnership, administered by the UCD-OFM partnership committee, whereby The Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute for the Study of Irish History and Civilisation was established. It was agreed that some … Continue reading A Well-Travelled Collection
The harvest comes as a time of abundance and fruition, with crops that grew in unhurried determination through the wind and rain of spring now standing ripened and ready for gathering. For our forebears, this was a time of great celebration, as it marked the point at which the lean months of June and ‘Hungry … Continue reading PROFUSION AND PLENTY–THE HARVEST IN IRISH TRADITION
We continue our Decade of Centenaries series by focusing on a scrapbook kept by Frank Carney, a prisoner in Ballykinlar Internment Camp. Frank Carney was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh on April 25, 1896. He joined the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers at the outbreak of war in 1914, but due to continuous bouts of ill health, … Continue reading DOC Series: Ballykinlar Internment Camp
The Evertype editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Originally conceived by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson as a story to amuse Alice Liddell and her sisters during a boat trip at Oxford, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1865 under the author’s pseudonym of Lewis Carroll. It has not been out of print since it … Continue reading Alice’s Many Visits to Wonderland
Have you ever noticed any seals while exploring the Irish coastline? Has one ever spoken to you? According to several legends collected by the Irish Folklore Commission (IFC), this strange occurrence was experienced by fishermen and seal hunters in times gone by. Legends featuring speaking seals were collected by the IFC, as well as legends … Continue reading People Under Enchantment