Holy Wells and Sacred Trees: Interference with the natural world

While legal and religious factors have long guided our moral compass, our traditional code of right and wrong has also been informing individual conduct for a considerable amount of time. In oral tradition, particular behaviours deemed to be unacceptable are often followed by examples of what happens when this code is ignored. Among the prohibitions …

Games I Play

โ€˜... the children, at the first hint of Spring, cast down the toys bought for them at Christmas, and came out to play in the open air โ€” out to play all the games I knew so well. I noticed how little the games and rhymes had changed since I played here, the tunes remained …

Part-time Collecting for the Irish Folklore Commission

In general, I may say that these part-time collectors have been excellent, because we do our best to pick them carefully. -Seรกn ร“ Sรบilleabhรกin, 1950 On walking into the archive of the National Folklore Collection (NFC), you are greeted by walls of numbered manuscripts. To your right are the rolling shelves holding the bright green …