‘It all seems rather distant now’

Caoimhín Ó Danachair played many important roles within the Irish Folklore Commission and later the Department of Irish Folklore; recording informants, capturing photographs, looking after the questionnaire system and much more. He first joined the staff of the Commission in January 1940, having spent the period of 1937-1939 training in comparative folklore and ethnology as an Alexander von Humboldt Scholar in the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig. He wrote about this period in a short but evocative article in Sinsear 1979, the first issue of the student folklore journal, forty years after his departure from Germany. Though short, the article captures the excitement and novelty of a young student abroad, while also noting the rising anxiety and changing atmosphere in the country as a result of the impending outbreak of World War II. 

The Alps, Germany, 1937. NFC A001.34.00021 and NFC A001.34.00052

Arriving in Hamburg from Cobh on 19 October 1937, Ó Danachair began his studies in Berlin, becoming more comfortable with lessons in German as time passed. He had the opportunity to travel and visit different parts of the country while studying and a small collection of pictures he took are preserved in the archive of the National Folklore Collection (NFC). During his Christmas break in 1937 he visited ‘Schellenberg bei Berchtesgaden’, a town in Bavaria, where he visited the Alps and had an unsuccessful attempt at learning to ski. Crossing the border into Austria, he notes ‘the curious feeling of being nearer to home; a year later that feeling was no longer there, but in the meantime we had seen Austrian soldiers parading in Berlin, after the Anschluss’. He visited Munich and Regensburg, returning for his second year to the University of Leipzig in autumn 1938, noting still more signs of approaching war:

… Tanks rolling along the roads of Saxony and the sky dotted with aircraft. More and more people in uniform. Above all the reactions of one’s fellow students. Among the Germans a follow-the-band glory-of-war spirit, very much in contrast to the feelings of the landlady and the postman and the barber and all the elder people who had seen war before and had no wish to see it again. Among the foreign students a sort of grim guessing game as to the date of the coming war. You knew the date that had been guessed by the absence of the student who made it, for a belief in its accuracy was backed up by the return to the homeland.

War Memorial, the Alps, Germany, 1938. NFC A001.34.00044. The memorial still exists but has now been altered as a memorial to those who died during WWI and WWII.

Despite this growing tension, he notes further outings, to the carnival in Leipzig, as well as an Easter visit to Dresden. He describes one night when the students were arrested for singing in the street:

The lecture from Herr Wachtmeister, who assured us that he had enough worries without our help, and that if we must sing at least we might sing in tune and not torture the ears of a music loving city. All of which we, naturally, had to interpret to each other in several different languages.

Landscape near Dresden, 1938. NFC A001.34.00063 and Inn sign, Dresden, 1938. NFC A001.34.00080

Ó Danachair does not note in his article his penchant for buying different books in the Insel-Bucherei series produced by the German literary publisher Insel Verlag. The series, which has its own interesting history, consists of a numbered selection of books with cardboard covers, 15 of which are held in the library of the NFC. One, containing a series of photographs depicting the sculpture of the Naumburg Cathedral, was officially presented to the Irish Folklore Commission by Ó Danachair in 1949, but the other 14 seem to have also made their way to the NFC library in the following years. Most of the books contain Ó Danachair’s signature, as well as the place and the date where the book was purchased; Bilderpossen by Wilhelm Busch, bought in Leipzig in February 1938, Zwei Weihnachtsgefchichten by Theodor Storm, bought in Brandenburg in 1938, Schein und Sein by Wilhelm Busch, bought in Dresden, Easter 1938.

Die Bildwerke des Naumburger Doms, Insel-Bucherei Nr. 505

Cover of Hernach by Wilhelm Busch. Inside signed: Caoimhghín Ua Danachair, Berchtesgaden, Weinacht, 1938

Two of these books are marked ‘Altona, 10 July 1939’. They were purchased, no doubt, on the eve of his departure for home on the 11 July, a mere seven weeks before Germany invaded Poland. While his subsequent career as a folklorist would bring Ó Danachair to many places, amassing large collections of audio and photographic material, this small collection of photographs, books and a short three-page article remain as a window into the life of a young student of folklore on the precipice of history.

This blog was researched and written by Ailbe van der Heide, Cúntóir Leabharlainne | Library Assistant, Cnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann | National Folklore Collection.

---

Further reading:

Lysaght, P. 2002. ‘Caoimhín Ó Danachair/Kevin Danaher (1913-2002)’ in Béaloideas 70, pp. 219-226.

Ó Danachair, C. 1979. ‘Green Corn’ in Sinsear 1, pp. 82-84.