On 15 June 2023, a portion of the Audio Collection held in the National Folklore Collection was launched on dúchas.ie. The recordings now featured on the website were collected throughout Ireland, featuring songs, music and stories in English and Irish. Most of the recordings were made with the help of sound technician Leo Corduff, and … Continue reading Enter the Tape Recorder
Chuir Leo le cartlann fuaime Roinn Bhéaloideas Éireann ar go leor slite – mar bhailitheoir agus mar chartlannaí, áit a ndearna sé clárú ar an ábhar agus a raibh sé ábalta a mhéar a leagan láithreach ar pé ábhar a bheadh ag teastáil. Chuir sé go han-mhór leis an gcartlann grianghraf chomh maith, mar a … Continue reading Leo Corduff: Collector and Photographer
From the time it was founded in in 1935, the Irish Folklore Commission (IFC) expressed an interest in gathering information about the clothing and dress. The section on clothing included in A Handbook of Irish Folklore (1942) is detailed and asks for information on many different aspects of the clothing worn by previous generations. It … Continue reading Clothing Worn and Clothing Remembered
I am happy to inform you, dear reader, that if you are viewing this blog post, you have survived one of the most ill-fortuned days in Irish folk tradition, occurring Sunday last. Whitsunday - Domhnach Cincíse in Irish - was a day regarded with suspicion and trepidation, and Whitsuntide or Whit week, the period from … Continue reading Domhnach Cincíse, Day of Misfortune
Users of the 1937-1939 Schools’ Collection often comment on the beautiful handwriting of the contributing students. Indeed, it was often the student with the neatest handwriting who copied the chosen material from the smaller copybooks to the larger, final manuscripts now bound into the Schools’ Collection and available online on dúchas.ie. The careful handwriting is … Continue reading Illustrating Tradition: Maps from the Schools’ Collection
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 … Continue reading Holy Wells and Sacred Trees: Interference with the natural world
‘... 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 — 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 … Continue reading Games I Play
In general, I may say that these part-time collectors have been excellent, because we do our best to pick them carefully. -Seán Ó Súilleabháin, 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 … Continue reading Part-time Collecting for the Irish Folklore Commission
Through the centuries the Irish have been referred to as storytellers, poets and singers. But where do these poems and songs come from? In UCD Archives there is a small fragmentary collection that belonged to a collector and translator of Irish manuscripts. Eugene O’ Curry was born in Dunaha, Co. Clare on 2 November 1794. … Continue reading Fireside songs they are gone
For the second year in a row, Ireland was without its annual St Patrick’s Day parade, and yesterday lacked the costumes, floats and crowds of Patrick’s Days past. In Irish tradition, however, the celebration of St Patrick is not limited to March 17th, and stories of his many feats, journeys and teachings survive, both in … Continue reading St Patrick: A Legend in the Landscape