UCD LIBRARY CULTURAL HERITAGE COLLECTIONS
Welcome to the UCD Library Cultural Heritage Collections blog. Discover and explore the historical treasures housed within our Archives, Special Collections, National Folklore Collection and Digital Library
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 …
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 …
‘One of the greatest sources of information we have in Ireland is the Ordnance Survey Books, which were made about a century ago by three men, John O’Donovan, Eugene O’Curry, and George Petrie. They went around and took down all the place names of the country and recorded material of very great importance. But the …
“Your name must, and will always be, associated with the rescue at the last moment of Irish tradition.” Praise indeed when one considers that the author of such words was Séamus Ó Duilearga, honorary director of the Irish Folklore Commission (1935-1971), who was himself credited by many as being the driving force in the race …