The Irish Folklore Commission, in its aim to collect and preserve the folklore of Ireland, placed huge trust and responsibility on its full-time collectors, some of whom remained in the employment of the Commission for many years. The Commission was also reliant on part-time collectors and questionnaire correspondents to capture aspects of tradition from areas without a full-time collector. Many of the contacts and correspondents of the Commission have played a role in shaping their collections in various ways, regardless of the number of manuscript pages attributed to their names. Some part-time collectors worked consistently for the Commission over a number of years, while others provided limited but valuable collections from their own areas. They also provided extra support for the Commission in hosting collectors, providing advice on the local storytellers and other tradition bearers, and acting as contacts for the Commission in areas where no full-time collector resided. One such part-time collector was Máire Ní Chróinín, a national school teacher at the school in Eachléim, on the Mullet Peninsula in Co. Mayo.
From left to right: Antoine Ó Donnchadha, Gleann Chaisil, Máire Ní Chróinín, An Eachléim, Tomás Mac Gairbhí, Inbhear, and Mícheál Mac Énrí, Bangor, in 1937. Photographer: Séamus Ó Duilearga
A questionnaire on holy wells was circulated to national school teachers in 1934, predating the foundation of the Irish Folklore Commission in 1935. Máire Ní Chróinín replied to the questionnaire with several accounts of holy wells found locally, including two wells on Dubhoileán Mór, one on Inis Glóra, one on Inis Gé, one in An Carn and the other in Oiligh. Her interest in folklore preceded this survey, as she had already collected a number of folktales and prayers in the early 1930s, allowing the Commission to later make a typescript copy of this work. It is clear she understood the wealth of the oral tradition in the area, which she notes in a letter to Séamus Ó Duilearga in December 1935, explaining:
‘The Mullet Peninsula, especially around Blacksod and Falmore, is exceptionally rich in folklore. I have collected a good deal, but have not sufficient time to do the work thoroughly.’
Hearing that the Commission was in the process of hiring collectors, she suggested a young man named Pádhraig Bairéad. Her suggestion was well-founded, as Pádhraig Bairéad, who was around twenty years old, originally from Mullach Rua, collected material on a continuous basis between 1936 and 1941. Many of his earlier collected works capture folktales from the area, later branching out into other aspects of tradition, including prayers, information on local saints and place lore. A notable difference arises when he was given a copy of ‘An Lámhleabhar Béaloideasa’, an early version of Seán Ó Súilleabháin’s guide for collectors. Bairéad begins to follow the themes suggested in the booklet, working through them systematically. Seán Ó Suilleabháin and Séamus Ó Duilearga both praise his work, impressing on him the importance of certain topics in the area. While he ceased actively collecting in 1941, he continued to respond to questionnaires issued by the Commission until 1944.
Pádhraig Bairéad, 1938. Photographer: Séamus Ó Duilearga
Máire Ní Chróinín also continued corresponding with the Commission herself, answering some of the earliest questionnaires sent out by the Commission, including those on the ‘bata scóir’, stone heaps and St Martin’s Day. As a national-school teacher, she also oversaw the work undertaken by schoolchildren in Eachléim for the 1937-1939 Schools’ Collection, which includes stories, prayers, cures, riddles and other local traditions. Over 400 pages of manuscript material of work by the schoolchildren can be found on dúchas.ie. Some of this work was completed in the school year of 1937/1938, but it also contains earlier work.
Separate from any of her collecting work, Máire Ní Chróinín also acted as host and contact to Séamus Ó Duilearga when he visited the Mullet peninsula in 1937 and in 1941. The Director stayed in her house in Glais for a month’s holiday in 1941, where he visited many of the informants, collectors and old friends in the area, as well as visiting the islands of Inis Cé. She had also hosted the scholar Ake Campbell when he visited the area to survey the traditional houses in Ireland in 1935. Some of Campbell’s photographs from this trip can be found on dúchas.ie.
CBÉS 136: 97. Image drawn by children from Inis Cé of the altar in Colmcille’s church
Photograph included in CBÉS 136: 102 of carved stone on Inis Cé
While material collected by Máire Ní Chróinín is some of the earliest material from the Mullet Peninsula for the Irish Folklore Commission, more would follow. Pádhraig Bairéad’s work was followed later by another part-time collector from Eachléim, Mícheál Ó hEibhrín. Mícheál Mac Énrí, a teacher from Bangor, was another friend and contact to Séamus Ó Duilearga in the 1930s, though he would later become a special collector for the Commission in 1954 and collected all over Erris until 1964. In 1958, he would accompany Leo Corduff in his work making sound recordings for the Commission in the area, some of which are available on dúchas.ie. These recordings feature people already well-known to the Commission to be excellent speakers, like Mícheál Mór Mac an tSaoir.
The work of the Commission was hugely reliant on connections with those who would be familiar with the local area and its oral traditions. Without their help, as well as the goodwill of all of the informants, the work of the Commission could not have been carried out to the same extent.
This post was written by Ailbe Van Der Heide, National Folklore Collection Curator
Very Interesting – Thank you!