UNIVERSITE RENNES 2

Mémoire de Master 1 Etudes irlandaises

Following the Fairies: Full-time Collectors of the Irish Folklore

Commission

Jillian KRUSE Sous la direction de Yann BÉVANT

Année 2012-13

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Table of Contents

Page Title Page 1 Table of Contents 2 I. Background of the Commission 3 II. Employment and Materials 13 III. The Challenges of Collection Folk Material 28 IV. Significance of the Study 52 Bibliography 57

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No nation of the world has gathered in its folktales with the fullness, the loving care, and the dazzling rewards manifest in Ireland1.

The Irish Folklore Commission (Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann), founded in

1935 under the auspices of the Irish Free State Government (Saorstát Éireann) and

the Department of Education, was a government organization, which methodically

and systematically collected folklore throughout Ireland2. Originally conceived as a

temporary five-year commission to collect and preserve the folklore of Ireland, the

Irish Folklore Commission’s work spanned several decades. Under the direction of

Séamus Ó Duilearga (also known as James H. Delargy), the Irish Folklore

Commission and its staff managed to collect an unprecedented wealth of folk material

including folktales, traditional folk music, photographs of folk life, and numerous

sound recordings3. From its earliest days, the Commission was a champion of the

Irish language, and nearly 85% of the Commissions total collections—along with the

collectors’ field diaries—were recorded in Irish4. The work of the Commission is

carried on today by the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin to

which the Commission transferred its staff and collections in 1970 5 . These

collections, made up of the Main Manuscript Collection as well as the Schools’

Manuscript Collection, number upwards of a million handwritten pages of recorded

folklore material6.

1 Richard Dorson, foreword to Folktales of Ireland ed. and trans. by Seán Ó Súilleabháin (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966), v. 2 The Commission also collected in the six counties of Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Scotland. 3 Caoimhín Ó Danachair, “The Irish Folklore Commission,” The Folktale and Folk Music Archivist, 4, no. 1 (Spring 1961),4. 4 Seán Ó Súilleabháin, “Opportunities in the Irish Folklore Commission,” Journal of the Folklore Institute [Special Issue: The Anglo-American Folklore Conference] 7, no. 2/3 (Aug-Dec 1970),122. 5 Mícheál Briody, The Irish Folklore Commission 1935-1970: History, Ideology, Methodology (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2007), 212. 6 Seán Ó Súilleabhain, introduction to Folktales of Ireland, ed. and trans. by Seán Ó Súilleabháin (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966), xxxv.

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The Commission and its staff were not the first to collect folklore in Ireland.

The first published volume of Irish folktales appeared in 1825, under the title Fairy

Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland and was compiled by Thomas Crofton

Croker. Unlike the later work undertaken by the Commission, Croker and other early

Irish folklorists wrote primarily in English and did not site their sources, giving little

importance to the language or the identity of the storytellers themselves7. The next

generation to publish Irish folklore was members of the Gaelic League (Conradh na

Gaeilge) such as Lady Augusta Gregory and W.B. Yeats, who contributed more

literary than scholarly works to the genre (still writing in English) and who did not

site their sources. Only under the influence of Douglas Hyde, then a professor in Irish

Language and Literature at the National University of Ireland in Dublin (later

renamed University College Dublin), did Irish folklorists begin to record in Irish and

to take note of the identities of their informants8.

Despite this early penchant for the of collection Irish folklore, the creation of a

national collection of folk tradition would have to wait until after the establishment of

the Irish Free State in 19219. In the period following independence from Britain, the

collection of Irish folklore, especially in Irish, intensified. Provisions made for the

Irish language under the new Irish Free State attempted to bring the language to the

forefront of Irish culture and identity. In its 1922 Constitution, the new government

declared that “[t]he National Language of the Irish Free State is the Irish language10,”

favoring the ancient language over English. Although some provisions had previously

been made for the Irish language, the enhanced position of Irish in the Free State

allowed new projects and government organizations to be set up in order to define and 7 Dorson, vii. 8 Ibid, xvii. 9 Briody,19. 10 “The Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) Act 1922, Article 4,” last accessed March 22, 2013, http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/E900003-004.

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assess the Irish Gaelic identity of the people and the status of the Irish language. The

new Free State Government established a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking districts)

Commission to report on the state of the Irish language in 192511, in 1928 compulsory

Irish was introduced into the National Schools12, and the collection of folklore, which

had been largely put on hold during the independence and civil war years, began to

gain momentum.

One of the greatest folklore enthusiasts of post-war Ireland was Séamus Ó

Duilearga, the man who would later become the Director of the Irish Folklore

Commission. Ó Duilearga, who worked as Douglas Hyde’s assistant at University

College Dublin, founded the Folklore of Ireland Society (An Cumann la Béaloideas

Éireann) in 192613. The Society strived “to collect, to examine, to publish, and to

make available the folklore of Ireland14.” The Society, still in existence today,

published a biannual journal entitled Béaloideas, which was sent out to members free

of charge. A predecessor of the Irish Folklore Commission, the Folklore of Ireland

Society was completely dependent on member subscriptions15. In 1928, Ó Duilearga

asked for government funding in order to establish an Irish Folklore Institute

(Institiúd Béaloideas Éireann). In addition to an annual grant of £500 from the Free

State government, the Irish Folklore Institute received a £300 grant from The

Rockefeller Foundation in 1930 16 . This funding, however, was proven to be

inadequate and Ó Duilearga soon sought out a way to improve the Folklore Institute’s

financial prospects.

11 Briody,50. 12 Brian Fallon, An Age of Innocence: Irish Culture 1930-1960 (Dublin: Gill & MacMillan Ltd, 1998), 162. 13 Bo Almqvist, “In Memorium Séamus Ó Duilearga,” Sinsear: The Folklore Journal 3 (1998),1. 14 Briody,77. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid,100.

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When Fianna Fáil took power in 1932, Ó Duilearga approached several

members of the government with a new scheme to facilitate the collection of folklore

in Ireland. Ó Duilearga met with several government ministers including Éamon de

Valera, President of the Executive Council at the time. De Valera, like Ó Duilearga,

idealized the traditions of rural Ireland and proved to be sympathetic to Ó Duilearga’s

cause in their May 1933 meeting17. Shortly after this meeting, Ó Duilearga sent a

proposal to de Valera in which he outlined the mission he wished to accomplish. Ó

Duilearga proposed:

(a) systematic co-ordination and arrangement of the the existing literary material. (b) systematic collection of unrecorded oral tradition with a view to: (c) the eventual co-ordination and treatment of the whole material thus obtained and its linking up with culture of other Celtic nations, in order to clarify its position in the shaping of a distinct Irish nationality and its inter-relations with European civilization in general18.

Ó Duilearga also highlighted the need for full-time field workers, a suggestion that

would become an integral part of the Irish Folklore Commission. In 1934, after the

Terms of Reference were finalized, Dáil Éireann approved a grant of £3,250 per

annum to set up the Irish Folklore Commission for a period of five years19. The Irish

Folklore Commission was officially set up on April 2nd, 1935 with the plan “to

undertake the collection, preservation, classification, study and exposition of all

aspects of Irish folk tradition20.” The Commission hoped to gather information in

17 Briody,107. 18 Séamus Ó Duilearga, “Collection of Oral Tradition in Ireland,” Department of the Taoiseach 9244 quoted and translated in Briody, The Irish Folklore Commission, 109. 19 Briody,129. 20 Ó Súilleabháin, “Opportunities in the Irish Folklore Commission,”), 16.

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order to give a complete picture of the whole of Ireland, which included traditions in

both English and Irish21.

In order to preserve the folklore of Ireland, the Commission and its field

collectors would have to act quickly. Throughout its history, the Commission raced

against time to collect lore and tradition in the Irish language, which was experiencing

a rapid decline. By the time that the Commission began to collect folk material, the

Irish language had been “driven back to the western rim of the country, along the

Atlantic Ocean22 .” In addition to the dwindling number of Irish-speakers, the

Commission and its collectors had to deal with the reality of an aging population of

storytellers and tradition bearers that were often very elderly and close to death. In a

memorandum to the Secretary of the Department of Education, the Commission’s

Director Séamus Ó Duilearga expressed the Commission’s need to race against time

and old age in order to collect folklore material before it disappeared forever: “The

Commission has to push ahead without stop and stay with the collecting. The narrator

who is alive this year, may well be dead the next year, and the knowledge he has will

go with him to the grave23.” Racing against time, the Folklore Commission soon

began its collecting in earnest.

To recover Ireland’s folk traditions from the jaws of death, the Irish Folklore

Commission depended on the labors of its field collectors. These field collectors, who

often worked long hours for little pay, enabled the Commission to amass a wealth of

Irish folk tradition in a relatively short period of time. Although some historical

research has been done regarding the Irish Folklore Commission, these studies tend to

21 Briody, 33. 22 Seán Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia on Folklore, ed. Stith Thompson (1953; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976),3. 23 Séamus Ó Duilearga “Ó Duilearga to the Secretary of the Department of Education dated 15.11.1957,” Department of Finance S101/0011/34 quoted in and translated Briody, The Irish Folklore Commission, 178.

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focus on the content of the lore collected, the storytelling tradition, and the informants

themselves or on the foundation of the Commission and the work of its Director

Séamus Ó Duilearga. Little work has been done on the lives of the field collectors

themselves and the experiences they had while undertaking the monumental task of

collecting Ireland’s folk traditions. Who were the field collectors employed by the

Irish Folklore Commission, what materials did they use, and what were the

experiences of a collector of Irish folklore and tradition?

From the earliest days of the Irish Folklore Commission, the Director, Séamus

Ó Duilearga, insisted on the importance of field collection. Having begun collecting

on his own in the early as 1920s, Séamus Ó Duilearga was the first folklore collector

in Ireland to make use of a field diary, to take meticulous field notes, and to carefully

record the origins of the lore he collected as well as the identities of his informants24.

Ó Duilearga, who worked as an assistant to Douglas Hyde in the Department of

Modern Irish at University College Dublin, began his rigorous collection with the

storyteller Seán Ó Conaill and later learned, during a six month stay in Sweden, what

collection and organization methods were used in folklore collection and research in

other, primarily Scandinavian, countries25. Once the Commission was set up in April

1935, Ó Duilearga relied heavily on the Swedish system of collection to get the

fledgling Commission and its collection started.

During its lifetime, the Commission employed several different types of field

collectors in order to rake in the wealth of folklore and tradition to be found in

Ireland. Theses different types of field collectors included: full-time collectors, part-

time collectors, schoolchildren (from the 1937/38 Schools’ Scheme), special

collectors, and questionnaire correspondents (many of which were National School

24 Briody,89 25 Ibid.

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Teachers). By 1940, the Commission had eight full-time collectors in the field26. The

full-time collectors were largely confined to those counties that compromised the

Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking areas): Counties Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry,

Cork, and Waterford27. No full-time collector was dispatched to a Galltacht (English-

speaking) district until Michael J. Murphy became a full-time collector in Country

Tyrone in 194928. In fact, before Murphy began collecting full-time, the Commission

had already sent collectors, Caoimhín Ó Danachair, to the Isle of Man in 194729, and,

Calum Maclean, to Scotland in 1945 30 . As the Gaeltacht districts, especially

Connemara in the West and Donegal in the North, were made into priority areas for

folklore collection, the Galltacht (English-speaking) and Breac-Ghaeltacht (partially

Irish-speaking) districts of Ireland would remain largely ignored by full-time

collectors. The role and experience of the full-time collector will be explored in depth

in this study.

While the Commission relied on the full-time collectors to cover the Gaeltacht

areas, they would turn to less traditional folklore collectors to tackle some of the folk

material available in the Galltacht areas. In order to gather this material, the

Commission relied on a network of part-time and special collectors as well as

schoolchildren and questionnaire correspondents, many of which were National

School Teachers. In fact, it was not until after World War II that the material

collected by full-time collectors began to surpass that collected by part-time

collectors31.

26 Seán Ó Súilleabháin, foreword to A Handbook of Irish Folklore (1942; London: Herbert Jenkins, 1963), i. 27 Seán Ó Súilleabháin, “The Collection and Classification of Folklore in Ireland and the Isle of Man,” Folklore Vol. 68, No. 4 (December 1957): 451. 28 Michael J. Murphy, Tyrone Folk Quest (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1973), 5. 29 Briody,297. 30 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,8. 31 Briody,241.

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In 1953, at a Symposia of Folklore at the University of Indiana Bloomington,

Seán Ó Súilleabháin, the archivist for the Commission, stated that the Commission

was then utilizing upwards of fifty part-time collectors. According to Ó Súilleabháin,

these collectors came from a wide variety of backgrounds. “They may be teachers,

workers for our farmers in the country, clerks in shops, young secondary students in

school, or anything of the kind32.” They collected in Galltacht as well as Gaeltacht

districts in their spare time, and, the Commission supplied them with standard

notebooks as well as gummed-slips used to identify informants. These part-time

collectors were paid about £5 per ninety-six-page notebook33. Part-time collectors for

the Commission were often amateurs who did not have any training. They received

some limited instruction from the Commission—usually by letter from Ó

Súilleabháin. If the part-time collector “showed promise,” then he would be brought

to the Home Office in Dublin to be trained34. Collection as a part-time field collector

could lead to a position as a full-time field collector35.

In addition to the standard part-time collector, the Commission also utilized

the services of Irish primary schoolchildren in a Schools’ Scheme during the

1937/1938 school year36. Instead of composition in either English or Irish, the

children were given a topic by their teachers and were asked to question their relatives

and neighbors about a specific piece of lore; the material was transferred to an official

copybook provided by the Commission, which were sent to the Head Office in Dublin

along with the original collections 37 . To Séamus Ó Duilearga and Seán Ó

Súilleabháin, the primary advantage gained by the school collection “was that they

32 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia, 9. 33 Ibid,9. 34 Ibid,70. 35 Briody,232. 36 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxv. 37 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,63-64.

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covered different parts of the country, to which [they] could never send [their] full-

time or even [their] part-collectors38.” In addition to surveying areas to which the

Commission could never send collectors, many of the National Schoolteachers who

participated in the Scheme would go on to be questionnaire correspondents for the

Commission39. In his field diary, Séamus Ennis often refers to schoolteachers who

helped him make contacts upon first arriving in the area. This network of

correspondents in the form of National Schoolteachers became an important link in

the chain for the Commission.

Of the different types of collectors, the role of the special collector is not well

known. To date no comprehensive study has been done on the role of the special

collector. Although scholars know that the special collector, like the full-time

collector, was required to keep a diary, and, that they were often retired

schoolteachers, their role as well as their work remain unclear40, and would benefit

from further study. Collectors’ work such as that of Caoimhín Ó Danachair, who

worked as an ethnologist in Ireland and the Isle of Man, as well as of Calum Maclean,

who collected in Scotland, merit further study as well.

As I have a limited knowledge of the Irish language, this study will be

confined to material available either in translation from the original Irish or original

material collected in English. In addition much of the material collected by the Irish

Folklore Commission, including the field diaries of the full-time collectors, remains

un-translated and unpublished. Part one of this study will focus on the employment

requirements to become a full-time field collector as well as the materials used by the

collectors. Part two will focus on the experiences of two full-time collectors: Séamus

38 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,28. 39 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxv. 40 Briody,241.

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Ennis and Michael J. Murphy. What were their experiences as collectors and what

difficulties did they run into during their collection? The two collectors whose

experiences will be detailed in this study were selected in light of two basic factors:

publication of their work and language. Ennis’ diary, which was written primarily in

Irish with some English entries, is the only complete field diary of any collector

employed by the Irish Folklore Commission to be translated into English and

published41. Murphy, who was not proficient in Irish and recorded only in English,

was the only full-time collector employed by the Irish Folklore Commission to

publish an account of his work with the Commission42. Part two of this study will also

examine the impact of the full-time collector on their informants as well as the

limitations and oversights made in collection.

41 Ennis’ diary was translated and edited by Ríonach uí Ógáin and published in English by University Cork Press as Going to the Well for Water: The Séamus Ennis Field Diary 1942-1946. 42 Murphy wrote a memoir entitled Tyrone Folk Quest published by Blackstaff Press. This book was based off of copies he kept of his diaries detailing his experiences as a field collector in County Tyrone.

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Part I –Employment and Materials

From the early days of the Irish Folklore Commission, the full-time field

collector played a crucial role in the collection of Ireland’s folk material. The

Commission’s Director, Séamus Ó Duilearga, initially proposed a full-time field staff

of ten to fifteen collectors43, but the Commission would never have more than ten

full-time field collectors at any one time44 and during World War II—known as “the

Emergency” in Ireland—the Commission’s reduced annual grant brought the number

of full-time field collectors down to three45. These field collectors were given limited

training, sometimes after they started work, and were sent out into rural Gaelic

Ireland to discover on their own the best ways to gain peoples’ trust and to save the

already disappearing folk traditions from the jaws of death. They faced a monumental

and difficult task, characterized by suspicious locals, a disappearing language, bad

weather, long hours, low wages, and a lack of job security. The rewards they reaped,

however, were great. More than one million manuscript pages were added to the

Commission’s archives, now the world-renowned National Folklore Collection at

University College Dublin46. In addition to the folk material collected, the staff of the

Commission—including those who worked at the Head Office in Dublin such as Ó

Duilearga and Ó Súilleabháin—developed a mutual respect with the informants that

could often turn into long lasting friendships. Finally, their attempt to save “the last

traces, as one may say, of a Gaelic civilization47” helped to develop the scholarly

study of Folklore and to advance methods of collection and archiving which earned

43 Briody,109. 44 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxiv. 45 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,7. 46 Dorson, v. 47 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,3.

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the Commission, in a relatively short period of time, a worldwide reputation for being

one of the leaders in Folkloristics.

The full-time field collectors of the Irish Folklore Commission came from

diverse backgrounds as well as different areas of Ireland. How were these full-time

field collectors chosen, and what experience or skills were necessary to become a full-

time collector for the Commission? Although the academic study of Folklore was not

yet fully developed in this period, the Commission did have some criteria to

determine who was eligible to become a full-time field collector. Factors that helped

to determine who became full-time collectors included gender, native language or

language proficiency, physical and social proximity to traditional communities, prior

experience with the Commission, and, for certain collectors, expertise in a particular

field.

It cannot be denied that gender was an important factor in the employment of

full-time field collectors. Although the Commission had female employees at the

Head Office and occasionally as part-time collectors in the field, no woman was ever

employed as a full-time collector for the Commission during its thirty-five year

existence 48 . The female employees of the Commission were relegated to the

administrative duties at the Head Office. There were female employees such as Bríd

Mahon49—who would later publish her own account of the Commission in While

Green Grass Grows—who worked as typists as well as Máire MacNeill, daughter of

Gaelic League co-founder Eoin MacNeill, who worked as a secretary50. MacNeill,

who was sent by the Commission to be trained at Uppsala in Sweden, later published

the folk study, The Festival of Lughnasa. One reason for the inequality of the genders

48 Briody,461. 49 Ibid,332. 50 Ríonach uí Ógáin, introduction to Going to the Well for Water: The Séamus Ennis Field Diary 1942-1946, edited and translated by Ríonach uí Ógáin (Cork: Cork University Press, 2009), 4.

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in full-time field collection may have been the requirement of female civil servants to

be unmarried or widowed in order to work. This would not be repealed until the Civil

Service Act of 1973, which took effect after the Irish Folklore Commission was

transferred to University College Dublin51. The lack of full-time field collectors may

have also influenced the material gathered by the Commission, as female informants

were less likely to be comfortable with male collectors52. The collector Michael J.

Murphy was able to collect some lore, otherwise not told to the male collector,

through his wife Alice53. Although female collectors or the wives of full-time male

collectors did in fact collect some folk material, the fact remains that all full-time

collectors employed by the Commission were male.

Another factor that determined who could become a full-time field collector

was language. Throughout its existence, the Commission focused on collection of

folk material in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) districts of Ireland where the folklore

of Ireland was believed to exist in greatest quantity and quality54. This concentration

by the Commission on the Gaeltacht districts and the Irish language necessitated a

full-time field staff well versed in the Irish language and its different dialects.

Therefore, the chances of a native Irish speaker being employed as a full-time

collector were much higher than those of someone who had learned Irish at school or

who had no Irish at all. In the first ten years of the Commission’s existence, only three

of its full-time collectors—Liam Mac Coisdeala, Caoimhín Ó Danachair, and Séamus

Ennis—were non-native Irish speakers who had a command of the language55.

51 “Civil Service (Employment of Married Women) Act, 1973, Section 2,” Irish Statute Book produced by the Office of the Attorney General, Acts of Oireachtas, last accessed March 22, 2013, http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1973/en/act/pub/0017/sec0002.html. 52 Briody, 463. 53 Murphy, 38. 54 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia, 5. 55 Briody, 30-31.

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Séamus Ennis, in particular, impressed informants as well as other collectors with his

ability to understand the different dialects56. Not until the 1950s did the Commission

employ its first and only full-time collector without any Irish, Michael J. Murphy57.

This preference for Irish language material and Irish-speaking collectors colored the

material gleaned from informants. Although other full-time collectors did collect

English language material, with only one full-time English language collector and

preferential treatment given to Irish language material it comes as no surprise that

upwards of 85% of the material collected by the Commission was in Irish58. The Irish

language’s place as the first language of the Commission ensured that, with one

exception, prospective full-time collectors were required to have a command of the

Irish language.

The physical and social proximity to the traditional communities in which

they worked was another characteristic of the full-time folklore collector of the Irish

Folklore Commission. The full-time collectors who were recruited by Ó Duilearga to

undertake the Commission’s collection work were often times intimately acquainted

with their informants either because they were working within their own districts or

had close ties of friendship or kinship to the area59. According to Bo Almqvist, who

succeeded Ó Duilearga as Director of the National Folklore Collection upon the

latter’s retirement, the fact that the collectors were known was a great advantage

because “[t]hey would not be mistaken for tax collectors, gunmen on the run, or

whatever else a stranger in an area can be mistaken for60.” When a collector did make

56 Séamus Ennis, Going to the Well for Water: The Field Diary of Séamus Ennis 1942-1946, ed. and trans. by Ríonach uí Ógáin (Cork: University Cork Press, 2009), 300. 57 Briody,232. 58 Ó Súilleabháin, “Opportunities in the Irish Folklore Commission,”122. 59 Georges D. Zimmerman, The Irish Storyteller (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001), 386. 60 Bo Almqvist, “The Irish Folklore Commission: Achievement and Legacy,” Béaloideas (1978-79), 45-47.

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a foray into an area where he was unknown, the local population could be

unwelcoming and suspicious until becoming better acquainted with the collector.

When the collector Michael J. Murphy made his first expedition to collect in County

Tyrone, he met with a great deal of suspicion with some locals asking him if he was

debt collecting “or an IRA man on the run61.” Previous knowledge of the area, the

people living in it, and the local dialect, therefore, was an important asset to a field

collector. Séamus Ennis in particular benefited from having visited the areas he

collected in with his father when he was younger as some of the local men and

woman recognized and trusted him more easily than they would have trusted a

complete stranger62. This sense of friendship and trust were key tools utilized by the

field collectors in order to elicit folk material from sometimes unwilling or bashful

informants.

Previous experience with the Commission as a part-time collector could also

work in favor of any prospective full-time collector. At the time of the Commission’s

induction in 1935, the study of Folklore as an academic subject had not yet taken

roots and the only route available for those interested in preserving the folklore of

their nation was to become amateur collectors. Many sought out the advice of the

Commission and were employed as part-time collectors in their own areas63. For

many this part-time work served as a sort of initiation into the subtleties of field

collection and the more promising of these amateur collectors would later become

full-fledged field collectors who worked full-time for the Commission. Collectors

such as Calum MacLean, who collected full-time for the Commission in Scotland64,

61 Murphy,30. 62 Ennis,223. 63 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,69-70. 64 Briody,300.

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and Leo Corduff, who ran the mobile sound unit after Caoimhín Ó Danachair65, both

worked first as part-time field collectors before being taken on to work full-time.

Michael J. Murphy, the Commission’s only full-time collector who did not speak

Irish, also worked as a part-time collector in his own native county66 before collecting

full-time in County Tyrone in 194967. The Commission relied on the experience that

these part-time amateurs garnered in the field to enable them to become successful

full-time collectors. During the term of the Commission this “field training” was

particularly important for the full-time collectors as the field of Folklore had not yet

been developed and academic training in the study at the university level was not yet

available.

In addition to the “standard” full-time field collector, who gathered mainly

items of folklore and folktales, certain individuals employed by the Commission were

brought on as full-time collectors because of specific and unique skills they

possessed. In March 1945, the Commission hired Calum MacLean to collect folklore

in Scotland. MacLean, who had been a temporary cataloguer and a part-time collector

in Connemara before becoming a full-time collector68, was a native Scottish Gaelic

speaker69. MacLean’s ability to speak and record in Scottish Gaelic as a native

speaker allowed him to collect material for the Commission in an area of the Celtic

world that had not hitherto benefited from full-time collection. The Commission’s

Director, Séamus Ó Duilearga, had been anxious to start collection in Scotland as he

65 Briody,343. 66 Ibid,293. 67 Murphy,7. 68 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,8. 69 Briody,299.

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viewed the Scottish lowlanders as “being indifferent to the Highlanders and Highland

(i.e. Gaelic) tradition70.”

Another area in which the Commission’s Director was anxious to collect was

traditional music. Ó Duilearga began looking for a full-time collector of music in

1942 and Séamus Ennis was hired to collect folk music that same year71. Ó Duilearga,

who had believed that no one was capable of collecting folk music72, was searching

for someone who “in addition to all the qualities desirable in a folklore collector, the

candidate should be able to transcribe both music notation and song lyrics73.” Séamus

Ennis, a musician himself, proved to have the necessary skills and was soon hired to

collect music full-time for the Commission74. The expertise of these two men allowed

them to take the step, for one, from part-time collector to full-time collector, and, the

other, from no collecting experience to a full-time collector. For each their specific

skills allowed them to become unique assets to the Commission and its mission to

collect not only the folklore of the Celtic nations but also its folk music.

The skills and attributes cultivated by each individual full-time collector

enabled him to become an expert in folklore field collection. Their work and devotion

to the collection of Irish folk material enabled the Irish Folklore Commission to

amass more than one million manuscript pages in a period of less than forty years. By

the time of Symposium of Folklore at the University of Indiana Bloomington was

held in 1953, the Commission was considered to be one of the leading organizations

70 Séamus Ó Duilearga “Séamus Ó Duilearga to Carl Wilhelm von Sydow dated 4.12.1936, 3-4.” Lund University Library, Carl Wilhelm Von Sydow Papers quoted in Briody, The Irish Folklore Commission, 299. 71 Uí Ógáin,4. 72 Briody,272-273. 73 Uí Ógáin,4. 74 Ibid.

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in the collection and study of Folklore75. The full-time collectors employed by the

Commission made up an integral part of the organization, as did the materials they

used in order to collect the folklore of Ireland.

After their initial appointment, full-time collectors were sent out into the field

to begin gathering folk material in earnest. In addition to the materials necessary to

complete regular field collection, the full-time collectors required materials to keep up

their obligatory field diaries (cinlae) as well as any materials seen as indispensable to

collectors such as Séamus Ennis, who were tasked with collecting different types of

folk material. What were the materials at the disposal of the full-time field collector

and how were they utilized? The materials used by the full-time field collectors to

carry out their work were Ediphone machines, standard notebooks and copybooks,

ink, Ordnance Survey maps, the Handbook as well as some other specialized

equipment.

One of the most important tools utilized by the full-time field collector of the

Commission was the Ediphone machine. The Ediphone, which was not originally

designed for fieldwork76, used wax cylinders to record oral material from the

Commission’s informants77. The employment of the Ediphone machine in the field

was pioneered by none other than the Director of the Commission, Séamus Ó

Duilearga, when he began collecting folk material in County Clare in 192978. The

Ediphone machine was given to full-time field collectors along with wax cylinders

used to record the material79. They were generally sent strong cardboard boxes full of

75 Alan Lomax, Four Symposia on Folklore, ed. Stith Thompson (1953; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976), 20 76 Briody,244. 77 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales of Ireland, xxxiv. 78 Ibid, xxvii. 79 Ibid, xxxiv.

21

five or six-dozen wax cylinders80. These cylinders could only hold roughly 1,200

words each81. Collectors were expected to use the recordings to transcribe the

material into standard notebooks and then to send the used wax cylinders back to the

Head Office where the transcripts were checked and the cylinders “were erased and

sent back to the collectors to be used again82.” The budget of the Commission did not

allow it to provide its collectors with an unlimited supply of wax cylinders, therefore

collectors were encouraged to use the Ediphone for longer tales or seanchas, while

shorter items were often written directly from the informant 83 . The Ediphone

machines, which weighed between 20 and 25 kilograms84, were rather cumbersome

and the collectors would often rely on their bicycles to transport the machine from

house to house85. Not all of the full-time field collectors were supplied with Ediphone

machines. The folk music collector, Séamus Ennis, did not receive an Ediphone

machine of his own until June 194486 and had until then borrowed the machine of

other full-time collectors such as Seán Ó hEochaidh87. However, these machines

became an integral part of the collection methods pioneered by the Commission and

would later be replaced by more modern recording machines.

Standard notebooks and pens were other types of fundamental materials used

in the collection of folklore by the Commission. The collector received notebooks

along with other necessary materials such as pens and ink upon demand from the

Head Office in the post88. The notebooks used by the collectors were filled with paper

80 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia, 4. 81 Ibid,6-7. 82 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxiv. 83 Ibid, xxxiv 84 Briody,244. 85 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,6-7. 86 Ennis,158. 87 Ibid,123. 88 Ibid,209.

22

that was roughly twelve inches by nine inches89 and were later bound in chronological

order by the staff of Head Office90. Collectors were expected to put in gummed

slips—which detailed when, where and from whom the information was gathered in

addition to as much biographical information as possible about the informant—into

these notebooks at the head of each tale collected91. They were asked to leave a

margin of about a half an inch on the “proper side” to allow for binding at the Head

Office92. They were also expected to write “as neatly and legibly as possible” as all

manuscripts were preserved93 and transcripts were checked by the staff of the Head

Office94. The collectors generally sent in about 100 pages a week to the Head Office

in Dublin95.

In addition to transcribing material collected from informants into

standardized notebooks, all full-time field collectors were expected to keep a field

diary, which detailed their fieldwork and daily activities96. These diaries, once

completed, were sent to the Head Office 97 . According to archivist Seán Ó

Súilleabháin, the Commission had roughly 150 volumes of diaries from their field

collectors in 196498. Along with the standardized notebooks for manuscript pages, the

Head Office sent the notebooks used to write field diaries to collectors upon demand.

Collectors were also supplied with pens and ink, which could be collected at the local

post office99. The collector Séamus Ennis required a specific type of black ink that he

89 Ó Súilleabhain, Four Symposia,6 90 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxiv. 91 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,6. 92 Ó Súilleabháin, instructions to the collector in A Handbook of Irish Folklore (1942; London: Herbert Jenkins, 1963), xiii. 93 Ó Súilleabhain, instructions to collectors in A Handbook of Irish Folklore, xii. 94 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxiv. 95 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,94. 96 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxiv. 97 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,7. 98 Ó Súilleabháin, introduction to Folktales, xxxiv. 99 Ennis,212.

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used for transcribing music100. There could sometimes be significant delays in the

reception of items from the Head Office. In one instance, Ennis was forced to stop

working as the necessary black pen ink he used for music transcription came ten days

later than expected101. These simple tools were absolutely essential to the work of the

Commission’s field collectors.

The Commission also made use of Ordnance Survey books and maps

compiled between 1825-1846. The Ordnance Survey was established in England in

1791 in light of fears of a looming French invasion102. In 1824, the Ordnance Survey

began in Ireland in an effort “to map the names, boundaries, and size of the townlands

for taxation purposes103.” Three men, John O’Donovan, Eugene O’Curry, and George

Petry, worked on the Survey. The maps they created, as well as the field diaries they

left were utilized by the Commission104. At a Symposium held on folklore at the

University of Indiana Bloomington in 1953 the Commission’s archivist, Seán Ó

Súilleabhain, explained that the Ordnance Survey maps were used to plot the progress

of the Commission’s collectors in order to prevent pockets of folklore from remaining

untapped. His explanation is worth quoting in its entirety:

We also supply our collectors with [O]rdnance [S]urvey maps, so that for each district they will put down a dot or a cross pointing out the glens, the valleys, and so on, which they have covered, and after a year we can see what areas are still to be tapped in a particular district105.

As the collectors were required to send all of their manuscript material and field

diaries to the Head Office in Dublin, the Ordnance Survey maps were used to show

them where they had already collected as well as what regions and districts might still 100 Ennis,233. 101 Ibid,240. 102 Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, Locating Irish Folklore: Tradition, Modernity, Identity (Cork: Cork University Press, 2000),41-42. 103 Ó Giolláin,42. 104 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,6. 105 Ibid,7.

24

have offered material to be collected. The Ordnance Survey along with other basic

materials issued to the full-time field collectors allowed them to do their work to the

best of their ability and to bring in an unprecedented wealth of folk tradition to the

Commission’s archives.

One of the most important materials used by the full-time field collector, as

well an innovation in the field of Folklore in its own right, was the monumental 699-

page A Handbook of Irish Folklore compiled by the Commission’s archivist Seán Ó

Súilleabháin. Ó Súilleabháin—who had been sent by the Commission to Sweden106 in

1935 to be trained as an archivist107—first compiled a shorter Irish version of the

book (Láimhleabhar Béaloideasa) in 1937, but the Commission soon felt the need for

a comprehensive guide for both its full-time and part-time collectors 108 . The

Handbook was to serve as a practical guide to collectors as well as a volume showing

the wealth of material already collected by the Commission109. The volume included

hundreds of questions broken into subsections as well as instructions to the collector

in order to facilitate the collector to “elicit information which [would] help to build up

a composite picture of the social life and traditions of the district in the past and

present110.” The collector was encouraged to “take advantage of every chance” and to

“follow every clue111.” The “Instructions to Collectors,” which precede the body of

106 The Commission’s close relationship with folklorists from Sweden stemmed from a close friendship between the Director Séamus Ó Duilearga and Carl Wilhelm Van Sydow and from Sweden’s role in innovating modern practices of Folkloristics. Sydow was a professor of Irish, Scandinavian, and Comparative Folklore at the University of Lund and played an important role in the foundation of the Irish Folklore Commission by working to convince Éamon de Valera, on behalf of Duilearga, of the importance of organized field collection. The Commission maintained close ties with Sydow and with other Swedish scholars particularly at the University of Lund and the University of Uppsala throughout its lifetime. (See Briody). 107 Seán Ó Súilleabháin, preface to A Handbook of Irish Folklore, vii. 108 Ó Súilleabháin, foreword to A Handbook of Irish Folklore, i. 109 Ó Súilleabháin, preface to A Handbook of Irish Folklore, ix. 110 Ó Súilleabháin, instructions to collectors in A Handbook of Irish Folklore, xi-xii. 111 Ibid, xii.

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the Handbook, set out the expected methods of collection for the field collector in

fourteen steps112.

The Handbook was given to all full-time field collectors and was seen to be as

important a tool as paper and pen. While the Handbook appeared as one 699-page

volume for a limited public, it was subdivided into three separately bound volumes

for the full-time collectors. This enabled them to slip the different sections into their

pockets during fieldwork113. In the early days of the Commission the collectors had

used Stith Thompson’s The Types of the Folk-tale to prompt responses of “I have

never heard that story,” “I have heard that story but can’t tell it,” and “I have heard

that story114.” With the Handbook, however, the collectors were now able and

expected to go chapter by chapter in a process of detailed questioning which would

elicit the maximum amount of information possible115. One collector, Michael J.

Murphy, referred to the Handbook as a “600-page questionnaire” of which he could

not hope to exhaust the potential material in less than 10 years116. The Handbook was

certainly a key material utilized by the Commission to rake in the folk material of

Ireland and its contents merit further examination than can be devoted to it in this

study.

In addition to the “standard” kit supplied by the Commission, some of the

field collectors also made use of non-standardized equipment that was generally not

provided by the Commission itself. This special equipment was individual to the

collector himself and often reflected his own personal interests. These non-standard

materials included bicycles, typewriters, and musical instruments. The typical salary

112 Ó Súilleabháin, instructions to collectors in A Handbook of Irish Folklore, xii-xiii. 113 Ó Súilleabhain, Four Symposia,69. 114 Ibid,4. 115 Ó Súilleabháin, instructions to collectors in A Handbook of Irish Folklore,xi. 116 Murphy,81.

26

for a collector was between £150 and £350 in the period of 1935 to 1955117. Most

could not afford to buy their own automobiles and turned either to friends with

vehicles or bicycles as their main means of transportation118. The rationing of petrol

during the Emergency meant that those collectors who had previously used motor

vehicles had to turn to bicycles as well119. Séamus Ennis’ field diary is peppered with

stories concerning his bicycle especially the frequent repairs he had to undertake.

Ennis also utilized boats, generally borrowed from local friends, in order to make

frequent crossings to neighboring islands in the areas in which he was collecting.

In addition to bicycles for transport, some full-time collectors utilized

materials that were their own personal property. Michael J. Murphy—who worked as

a journalist throughout his time with the Commission—made use of a typewriter,

which locals in County Tyrone referred to as “the printer120.” Séamus Ennis was a

talented musician and often brought along his whistle or his pipes when collecting.

His skill as a musician enabled him to build trust and create friendships that other

collectors may have struggled to generate121. The collectors of the Commission used

every tool they had at their disposal to, as Seán Ó Súilleabháin stated in the

Handbook, “reap the harvest” of folk material available in the districts in which they

were collecting.

The tools that the field collectors used in order to gather folk material were

essential to the success of the Commission. These tools along with the specific skills

and personality attributes of the collectors themselves enabled the Commission to

amass a large archive of folk material from throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle

117 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,9. 118 Briody,246. 119 Ibid. 120 Murphy,52. 121 Uí Ógáin,16.

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of Man. While the use of any of these tools by members of the Commission as well as

the individual collectors themselves all merit further study, the second part of this

study will be devoted to the experiences of two different collectors—Séamus Ennis

and Michael J. Murphy—who collected primarily in the West (Counties Clare,

Galway, and Donegal) and Northern Ireland (Counties Tyrone and Armagh)

respectively.

28

Part Two –The Challenges of Collecting Folk Tradition

Even before the Irish Folklore Commission was officially set up in 1935, the

Director-to-be, Séamus Ó Duilearga, stressed the necessity of having full-time

collectors122. Although the full-time field collector was not the only type of collector

utilized by the Commission, these collectors—who spent their days and especially

their nights collecting—were an integral part of the Irish Folklore Commission and its

mission to collect the folklore and folk music of Ireland. In the first twenty years

following the establishment of the Irish Folklore Commission, twenty-four men—the

maximum number of collectors working was never greater than nine at any one

time—worked as full-time collectors in all thirty-two counties of the island of Ireland

as well as in the Isle of Man and Scotland123. Two of the more unique collectors

employed by the Irish Folklore Commission were Séamus Ennis and Michael J.

Murphy.

Unlike most full-time collectors employed by the Commission, Ennis and

Murphy worked outside their home counties. Ennis, who was appointed to the

Commission in 1942, collected traditional folk music and song primarily in Counties

Cavan, Clare, Donegal, Galway, and Mayo. Murphy, who worked first as a part-time

collector in his native Armagh, was appointed to the Commission full-time in 1949 in

County Tyrone and later worked in Counties Antrim, Armagh, and Down. He was

also one of only two full-time collectors ever appointed to the Commission who did

not have a command of the Irish language124. Despite the singularity of these two full-

time collectors, common experiences shared by the two collectors demonstrate the

122 Briody,109. 123 Ibid,526. 124 Collector Jim Delaney (1954-55) spoke Irish, but collected primarily in the Galltachts of Ireland including in the city of Dublin. He, however, never published anything on his work with the Commission and his diaries, held in the National Folklore Collection, remain unpublished.

29

wider, more general experience of a full-time collector for the Commission. This

experience was characterized by both difficulties and rewards. The collectors faced

continuous trials on their patience as well as physical and mental capacities: in

establishing relationships with informants, drawing them out of their shells,

physically tracking them down, and constantly challenging meteorological conditions.

The rewards they reaped can be found in the friendships they formed as well as the

material they collected.

One of the more difficult tasks faced by the full-time field collector was the

establishment of a rapport with the local people from whom they hoped to gather folk

material. Locals were often suspicious of strangers and their initial aloofness could

impede a folklorist’s ability to collect new material. While most full-time field

collectors collected in their home counties125 in order to avoid such difficulties,

Séamus Ennis and Michael J. Murphy both collected in areas previously unknown or

unfamiliar to them. As a result, potential informants could be wary of them, and both

men were required to put in some effort in order to gain informants’ trust and to gain

access to the wealth of folklore these people held. Each man went about gaining this

all-important trust in different ways.

Ennis’ role as the sole traditional music collector of the Commission required

him to cover several different counties where he was relatively unknown—though he

largely chose where he worked. However, Ennis—who had toured the West of Ireland

with his father when he was younger126—was not entirely unknown in the areas in

which he collected, with the exception of Tory Island127, and was able to accomplish

the task of gaining the locals’ trust more easily than Murphy. Ennis relied particularly

125 Briody, 526 126 Ennis,223. 127 In this instance, Ennis found himself greatly frustrated by the aloofness demonstrated by the Tory Islanders and his own inability to crack their shells.

30

on his skills as a musician on the tin whistle and Uillean pipes to encourage his

potential informants to open up. In one instance while collecting in County Donegal

alongside full-time collector Seán Ó hEochaidh, Ennis “played a tune on the whistle”

which led an informant—who had said that she could not remember any songs—to

sing several songs for him “without stopping, without being asked128.” Ennis’ ability

on the pipes in particular led to his acceptance in the communities in which he

worked and his piping skills were in high demand for any Céilí (social gatherings

filled with music and dance), which might take place 129 . Ennis was also an

accomplished singer and often utilized this skill to his advantage, extracting material

from informants by using a form of reciprocation in which he shared music of his

own in order to extract theirs. “I sang some of one song and Éamon sang some of

another and the other man a part of another, until I got the one I wanted130.” Ennis’

ability as a musician as well as his willingness to reciprocate the sharing of music

with his informants continuously opened doors for him that had previously remained

closed to him as an outsider.

In addition to his skills as a musician, Ennis depended heavily upon other full-

time collectors such as Seán Ó hEochaidh and Liam Mac Coisdeala as well as

National Schoolteachers, and other informants to introduce him to new people who

had traditional music and songs. For his County Donegal collections, Ennis depended

upon the expertise of full-time collector Seán Ó hEochaidh with whom he developed

a close friendship and who often recommended potential informants to Ennis from

within his own network of informants utilized to gather folklore. Ennis even collected

128 Ennis,200. 129 Ibid,262. 130 Ibid,144.

31

from Ó hEochaidh’s grandfather131. The good reputation and standing of the other

full-time collectors allowed him to begin his collection more quickly in areas where

he had not previously collected than he might otherwise have done on his own. Ennis

also made use of the network of questionnaire correspondents—usually in the form of

National Schoolteachers—set up thanks to the Schools’ Scheme of 1937-1938. One

teacher, Nicolás Keys, asked his students if “their relatives [had] music and songs” in

addition to helping Ennis find lodging in the area132. Once Ennis developed a

relationship with some of his informants, they were often eager to introduce him to

others133. Ennis also found that by simply mentioning the name of the Commission’s

Director, Séamus Ó Duilearga, that some informants would enthusiastically give him

material134. While Ennis’ integration and acceptance in a new area could take some

time to develop, he was generally well-liked and soon found that most people offered

their songs willingly and that wherever he went “as in other places, people [he] [had]

never seen [said] ‘Hello, Séamus’ to [him] as [he] walk[ed] the roads135.”

Whereas Ennis had a unique musical talent and a pre-established network of

people willing to help him, Murphy—originally from County Armagh—relied on his

own initiative and carefully cultivated friendships with informants in order to open up

pathways of inquiry about folklore in County Tyrone. Unlike Ennis, Murphy could

neither rely on other full-time collectors nor the National Schoolteachers to help him

since he was the first collector sent to the Galltacht of County Tyrone and the

Schools’ Scheme of 1937-1938 did not cover the six counties of Northern Ireland.

Nor could he depend on the locals’ affection for the Commission’s Director as Ó

131 Ennis,89-90. 132 Ibid,31. 133 Ennis’ most trusted and prolific informant, Colm Ó Caodháin, often helped him to find new informants. 134 Ennis,44. 135 Ibid,281.

32

Duilearga was unknown in the remote area where Murphy was sent. Murphy, who

was intimately aware of his precarious position as an outsider, exercised extreme

caution and approached potential sources carefully not collecting in earnest “until

people had properly got to know [him]136.” He complemented these practices with the

idea of reciprocity when it came to collecting material.

Murphy “knew no one and no one knew [him]” when he arrived in Glenhull,

County Tyrone on December 31, 1949137. Murphy, who had been recruited as a part-

time collector by Ó Duilearga in 1942, felt that of all the places he had collected that

Glenhull seemed to him the most closed off upon his arrival. “I thought I could

actually feel in this place more resentment—even hostility—than I had known

elsewhere and as usual felt dismay, defeat138.” The locals were innately suspicious of

him especially upon hearing his South Armagh accent, which they took to be an

accent not from ‘the North,’ but rather ‘a brogue’ from the West139 or even that of an

Englishman140. They asked him if he was not “debt-collecting” or an “IRA man on

the run141.” He had to repeatedly explain what brought him to Glenhull, what his work

as a folklore-collector entailed, what the Irish Folklore Commission was, and even

what folklore was to his potential informants142.

On his first encounter with one of his future informants, Annie McCrae,

Murphy found himself face to face with a monosyllabic woman who was “still

cautious, resentful, her voice a whisper143.” Murphy’s luck only changed when he met

136 Murphy,27. 137 Ibid,7. 138 Ibid,18. 139 Ibid, 20. 140 Murphy had, in fact, been born in Liverpool to Irish parents and returned to South Armagh at the age of eight (Murphy, 12). 141 Murphy,30. 142 Ibid,20. 143 Ibid.

33

Francis McBride—a neighbor from whom he borrowed a ladder—Michael Morris,

and Francis McAleer144 who all “[took] a notable place in the success of [his] quest

for folklore145.” These men, in addition to having stores of folklore themselves,

helped Murphy to find and introduce himself to new informants. In fact, early on

during his stay in Glenhull, Murphy came home to find that a “great céilí [was] to be

held in [his] own house that night146.” He was thereafter known as “the Folklore man

in the Bungalow from University College Dublin147” or as “the Man who was

Following the Fairies148.” He began to be talked about in towns surrounding Glenhull

and some people brought him “names of people to call on149” which facilitated his

collection of folklore which he began collecting “during the night and typ[ing] during

the day, Saturday and Sunday included150.”

In addition to the challenges posed by making initial contact with new

informants, Ennis and Murphy were each faced with the difficult task of getting their

informants to talk. Many were reluctant to divulge any folk material they might have

for fear that their neighbors would think them simpleminded or because they did not

fully trust the collector himself. In addition to any reluctance that the collectors

encountered, they were also faced with the task of collecting material from informants

who may not have realized that they were, in fact, tradition bearers as well as older

informants who may have forgotten traditions they had cultivated before the onset of

old age and memory loss.

144 According to Murphy, McAleer was the first man to record a full-length folk-tale for the BBC (Murphy, 26) 145 Murphy,23. 146 Ibid,31. 147 Ibid,32. 148 Ibid,16. 149 Ibid,32. 150 Ibid,35.

34

While Murphy and Ennis were both faced with informants who could be less

than cooperative, the reasons for their reluctance were often variable. For Ennis, any

hesitation expressed by his informants in giving him their songs or music usually

came in the form of shyness or a general suspicion of the collector himself.

Informants could be shy both with Ennis as well as with their family and friends;

sometimes only allowing Ennis to record material if he came back later on when the

audience might be smaller151. Some informants were far less easily convinced and

remained skeptical of Ennis and his work. Several informants denied that they had

any material, but would later warm up to Ennis and allow him to collect from them152.

Ennis became obsessed with collecting from one reluctant informant, Learaí Ó

Curraoin, who often led him on a wild goose chase. Ennis described Learaí, as he

referred to him, as “a small, thin, worn-looking man with a grey moustache and blind

in one eye153.” At first Learaí refused to acknowledge having any material at all. “He

told me he never had any songs. That made me very despondent154.” Ennis schemed

to meet Learaí with the help of Tomás Cheaite, who was married to Learaí’s sister,

but was not successful. In one instance, Learaí instructed Cheaite to tell Ennis that he

was not at home155. In another that he would not come as arranged, because, as Ennis

reported with some skepticism, “he had rheumatism, he told them156.” Eventually

Learaí warmed to Ennis and allowed him to collect several songs from him including

‘Róisín Dubh’ [‘Dark Róisín,’] and ‘Seachrán Sí’ [‘Otherworld Wandering,’]157.

Ennis, who could feel discouraged by the other man’s evasion, showed a great deal of

151 Ennis,102. 152 Ibid,139. 153 Ibid,253. 154 Ibid,75. 155 Ibid,69. 156 Ibid,166. 157 Ibid,255.

35

patience with Learaí. Ennis was also persistent continuously trying to collect from

him from the first time they met in 1943 until he was finally able to collect material

from him two years later in 1945158. Although Learaí’s reluctance was perhaps more

deeply ingrained than in other informants, the necessity to coax informants into

divulging the traditions they had was not uncommon.

Murphy, who also encountered timid and skeptical informants during his

collection, was faced with an additional hindrance that Ennis—whose collection

focused mostly on music and song—did not encounter: fear of ridicule associated

with folk belief, particularly with fairies. According to Murphy, “[…]the folk mind

still fear[ed] exposure or ridicule159” and it was his job to coax “a Christian people” to

admit to a knowledge of or belief in “essentially pagan beliefs and practices160.”

Those who believed in these folk beliefs or practices were often thought to be simple-

minded. Parish priests denounced such folk beliefs calling them “superstitious161.”

The pagan belief in the fairies or “wee folk” was a particularly sensitive topic.

Murphy’s neighbor, Francis McBride, strangely did not talk about fairies leading

Murphy to wonder if it was for “fear of being thought simple-minded, naïve; fears of

making himself ridiculous or being ridiculed by neighbours[…] 162 .” Another

informant’s wife took to leaving the room when he began to tell tales “as she feared

he would make a fool of himself163.”

In addition to being ashamed of their knowledge of folk beliefs, some

informants were ashamed of having any Irish at all. Although Murphy did not collect

in Irish, traditions that were originally heard in that language were considered to be

158 Ennis,54. 159 Murphy,17. 160 Murphy,16. 161 Ibid,27. 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid,35.

36

more authentic than those passed down in English. Murphy actively collected material

translated—often times by the informant themselves—from Irish to English. In one

particular instance, Murphy met a woman who refused to acknowledge being able to

speak Irish despite the fact that he heard her speaking it from the road. The woman

was the sister of a returned Irish emigrant to America, and Murphy associated this

reluctance to admit having any Irish as a byproduct of the emigrant experience in

America. According to Murphy many were “still sensitive to the jibes and jeers of

Irish in America,” where the language was associated with social backwardness and

ignorance164. According to Murphy, eighty percent of the older inhabitants of the area

had spent “at least six years as emigrants in the United States165,” and the impact that

this contact with America may have had on Murphy’s informants can well be

imagined. Ennis likewise had an informant—returned from America—who would

only speak to him in English despite her knowledge of Irish166. While cases of

informants not wanting to speak in Irish or even admit to having Irish were relatively

rare, they still posed a problem to the collector looking to collect authentic Irish

material.

Despite the challenges posed by informants’ shyness and reluctance to share

material, Ennis and Murphy both worked tirelessly to elicit material from their

sources utilizing a combination of patience and persistence. Ennis often waited to

even question informants about potential material until they became comfortable with

him167 and Murphy did not begin to collect “in earnest” until people in the area began

to use his Christian name168. Patience was also needed when tracking down wayward

164 Murphy,67. 165 Ibid,30. 166 Ennis,177. 167 Ibid,281. 168 Murphy,30.

37

informants who may have been working in the fields or otherwise engaged outside of

their homes. For those who were suspicious and refused to acknowledge having any

material at all, the collectors were often forced to become persistent and were

generally able to coax their informants to share their material after some effort. As

mentioned above, Ennis became almost obsessed with collecting from a man named

Learaí Ó Curraoin and was only able to write songs from him two years after their

initial meeting169. With one of his informants—Annie McCrae—Murphy was only

able to extract folk material from her once he promised not to tell anyone whom he

heard it from170.

In addition to patience and persistence, the folk collector utilized aided

recollection as well as different forms of reciprocity in order to glean material from

his informants. The collectors often found that some of their informants were not

aware that they were indeed “tradition bearers” or that their memories had begun to

fade with old age. As a result the collector resorted to a sort of aided recollection by

utilizing material already collected from other informants, books containing

traditional tales or songs as well as employing Commission questionnaires and Seán

Ó Súilleabháin’s monumental A Handbook of Irish Folklore. In order to elicit further

material from Colm Ó Caodháin, his most trusted source, Ennis worked through a

book called Ceol na n-Oileán with him and a few of the songs in the volume

reminded Ó Caodháin of songs he had not yet given to Ennis171. Murphy, who

believed “that people do not really know what they know until the recesses of their

memories had been worked on172,” often played upon what he called the “clan-

169 Ennis,254. 170 Murphy,38. 171 Ennis,209. 172 Murphy,18.

38

instinct173.” Murphy would tell an informant a tale of his own and then attribute the

tale’s origin to another area174. This clan-instinct could sometimes trick informants

into “correcting” Murphy and revealing material that they had either previously

denied having or had forgotten about. Furthermore, Ennis and Murphy both used a

system of reciprocity to incite informants to share material. Murphy believed that it

was necessary for his informants to know a bit about him before revealing themselves

and their material to him175. These methods helped to put the informants at ease with

the collector and facilitated a good working relationship as well as a mutual respect

between folklorist and informant.

A close relationship between the folklorist and his informants did not mean

that the field collector had no more challenges to face in his collection. After the

initial trial of establishing a relationship with an informant and inciting them to relate

folk material, it remained essential to the field collector to retain a close relationship

with his contacts. Informants could become distant if they experienced even a

perceived slight on the part of the collector and sometimes jealousies between

informants could lead to difficulty in the collection process. Ennis was careful to visit

past informants when returning to the different counties he worked in lest his

informants feel used or neglected176. Ennis also had some trouble collecting material

from two of his informants because the two were competitive between themselves,

and would not stop talking long enough for Ennis to extract material from them177.

173 Murphy,39. 174 Ibid. 175 Ibid,18. 176 Ennis,77. 177 Ibid,248.

39

Murphy, on the other hand, experienced an estrangement with one of his most trusted

informants when he was unable to help the man with a crossword puzzle178.

He seemed to think I didn’t want to help, failed to call with me, and was not in his house when I called. I wanted to show my gratefulness to the man in some positive way. In the end when we met he said he had no more stories, dismissed my praise of his gifts and in folk-storytelling, guffawed over the contretemps of the crosswords, but I wasn’t convinced179.

Murphy was saddened by this estrangement and regretted the loss of the older man’s

respect180. However, he understood that trust between an informant and a collector

once broken was difficult to re-build as the folklorist was privy to many of the more

intimate details of his informants’ lives. The folklorist knew each of his informant’s

stories “in more depth and detail than any neighbor could possibly be aware of,” and

that he was “told information close to the heart that no confessor would ever hear181.”

The folklorist’s role as both friend and confidant of his informants allowed him to

collect an unprecedented wealth of folk material, but these relationships, while

rewarding, were often difficult and taxing to maintain.

As well as the careful preservation of relationships with their informants, the

task of the field collector of folklore and folk music was complicated by the advanced

age of many of their informants. As many of their informants were elderly, field

collectors of folklore and music often found themselves caught up in a race against

memory loss associated with old age as well as against advancing death. The

collectors often met people who perhaps ten years earlier might have been able to

give them material, but who had by then already forgotten much of the folk music or

178 Murphy,53. 179 Ibid. 180 Ibid. 181 Ibid.

40

folklore they had known. Ennis, upon meeting one potential informant, found that the

woman had forgotten much of what she had once known. “She told me she used to

have songs long ago, but that she had forgotten them182.” Many informants “regretted

that the collection had been left so late,” and that if the collector had come earlier then

he would have met with so-and-so who possessed a great wealth of lore or music

before their death183. With those who remained, the collector was often fearful of

overtaxing the energies of the elderly who often times dismissed the collectors’ kind

concern. When visiting a new informant, John Donnelly, Murphy did not touch on the

subject of folklore because he was afraid of taxing the old man, who despite

Murphy’s best efforts, “began to tell a long piece of narration and was clearly tiring

himself184.” The informant insisted that Murphy collect from him despite his old age

and ill health, because his death was approaching or as he put it he would soon be

“ploughing the head-rig anymore185.” The loss of some of their informants was

inevitable, and, the folklore and folk music collector often felt this pressure to collect

the material before it was lost forever.

Another major obstacle to the success of a full-time field collector in Ireland

was the weather. From its inception in 1935 to the early 1950s (roughly the period

covered in this study), most collectors of the Irish Folklore Commission did not have

access to motor vehicles, or, during the Emergency, to petrol. Out of necessity, they

generally relied on bicycles or their own two feet in order to cover the distances

between their lodgings and the homes of their informants. Any sudden inclement

weather could lead to the ruin of any written material the collector had on hand and he

would, out of necessity, have to collect the material given a second time. Since they

182 Ennis,86. 183 Ibid,23. 184 Murphy,51. 185 Ibid.

41

did not generally carry the Ediphone machine with them everywhere they went

because of its weight, the collectors generally carried notebooks and papers with them

that could easily be ruined if they found themselves caught in a storm. In a heavy

rainstorm, Ennis once “put all [his] papers down in [his] belt to the front of [his]

trousers” to prevent the papers from being ruined186. In addition to ruining papers, the

rain could also keep the collector at home preventing him from collecting until dryer

weather arrived187. While perhaps not the greatest challenge the field collector faced,

the weather could certainly pose a problem to efficient field collection.

Despite all of the challenges faced by the full-time field collectors, these men

were passionate about their work and persisted in collecting the folklore and folk

music of Ireland. They formed strong friendships with the people they collected from

that lasted long after the folk material had been exhausted. They labored to help their

informants in any way they could. They worked odd hours often late into the night

and took few vacations. So great was their passion that sometimes the Head Office, in

particular Seán Ó Súilleabháin, had to remind them to take time to rest188. However,

they found that the sacrifices they made and the challenges they faced were well

worth the price paid for the material that they collected. Their toil, along with that of

the part-time field collectors and the questionnaire correspondents enabled the Irish

Folklore Commission to assemble more than a million pages of folk material—in the

form of the Main Manuscript Collection part of the National Folklore Collection

housed on the campus of University College Dublin—between the creation of the

Commission in 1935 and its incorporation into the Department of Folklore at

University College Dublin in 1970.

186 Ennis,264. 187 Ibid,31. 188 Murphy,38.

42

Although the material legacy of the Irish Folklore Commission and its full-

time field collectors is impressive, it is not without its faults. The legacy of the

collectors in the field is also unclear. The impact that collection had on their own lives

as well as on the lives of the people they collected from is mixed. The work, while

rewarding, was time consuming and some collectors had trouble maintaining stability

in their own lives. They had little job security and virtually no room for advancement

in their careers. Likewise, the impact that collection had on the lives of informants

was mixed. The collectors helped informants to improve their living and financial

situations, cultivating relationships with their informants that often developed into

strong, lifelong friendships. However, the presence of a collector in the informants’

lives could sometimes lead to dissatisfaction after their departure. While scholars

often highlight the mass of material collected by the Irish Folklore Commission, the

greater legacy of the Commission and its collectors remains relatively unexplored.

The full-time field collector, having expressed an interest in folklore or folk

music as a prerequisite for employment at the Commission, was often deeply

passionate about their work. Their passion could sometimes even extend into

obsession. Like Ennis, Murphy, became obsessive about his work. Seán Ó

Súilleabháin, the archivist at the Head Office in Dublin, had to remind Murphy

several times to take vacation time189, and, once on vacation, Murphy continued to

collect material by questioning his mother-in-law190. His obsession to collect became

so strong that his wife commented that he was “selling [his] bit of dignity as well as

soul for the sake of folklore”191.

189 Murphy,38. 190 Ibid,69. 191 Ibid,83

43

Although the experience of being a full-time field collector for the Irish

Folklore Commission could be enthralling as well as rewarding, it could also be

trying for the field collector. Some of the full-time collectors, though passionate about

their work, did not stay with the Commission for very long. According to Murphy, the

collector’s deep involvement in their work took a toll on their mental stamina192.

Séamus Ennis only worked for the Commission from 1942 until 1947193. Other

collectors stayed with the Commission for a longer period of time, and some even

continued on collecting after the Commission’s transfer to University College Dublin.

Michael J. Murphy collected full-time for the Commission from 1949 through its

transfer in 1970, retiring in 1983194. Only one full-time collector, Seán Ó hEochaidh,

was continuously employed by the Commission, from its genesis in 1935 to its

transfer in 1970195. Collectors were given no room to advance in their careers and had

little job security—collectors were contracted on a year-to-year basis—until the full-

time collectors became civil servants under the ruling of .Taoiseach Seán Lemass in

1960196. Some collectors chose to pursue the collection of folklore and folk music

through other channels. After leaving the Commission in 1947, Ennis continued to

collect folk music for RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) and the BBC197. Others stayed on

after the transfer in 1970, working under the auspices of the Department of Irish

Folklore at University College Dublin.

In addition to generating a large body of folklore, the field collector also

exercised an important impact on the lives of the informants themselves. Whether the

impact made by the field collector on his informants, as well as the community he

192 Murphy, 40. 193 Uí Ógáin,7. 194 Briody,526. 195 Ibid. 196 Ibid,193. 197 Uí Ógáin,7.

44

lived in, was negative or positive is beyond the scope of this study. However, some

explanation of the influence exercised by the full-time collector in the community is

necessary. Wherever the full-time field collector went, he never failed to attract

attention, and to some, he became an integral part of the cultural scenery of post-

independence Ireland.

In his work, the full-time field collector of the Irish Folklore Commission had

a significant impact on those people with whom he came in contact. The arrival of

one of the Commission’s full-time collectors often became an event for the local

population; his presence could reinvigorate interest in folk traditions and music in the

area. In his introduction to Seán Ó Súilleabháin’s Folktales of Ireland, American

folklorist Richard Dorson described the new role of the folklorist in Ireland:

He has become an institution like the priest and the postman, and receives a friendly welcome and often a high tea when he comes. The old men respond eagerly to his arrival both from a glow of special pleasure and a sense of the value of their contribution198.

In Glenhull, the Murphy home—affectionately called “The Bungalow”—became a

place for night visits that were filled with storytelling199. Céilí dances were often

organized both for Ennis’ benefit and to showcase his musical prowess. The presence

of the full-time collector facilitated a renewal in interest and memory of folk

traditions and practices. For Murphy, his presence in Glenhull “had created a stir and

renewal of interest, an awareness of heritage[…]200.”

In addition to rejuvenating local traditions, the full-time collector also

developed intimate friendships with many of his informants. These friendships could

often lead to the amelioration of the living situation of the informant. Ennis formed a

198 Dorson, xxix. 199 Murphy,31. 200 Ibid,89.

45

particularly strong bond with his most prolific informant, Colm Ó Caodháin. He often

helped Ó Caodháin with tasks that Ó Caodháin could not accomplish himself such

finding calico for a new sail for his boat201. With other informants, Ennis helped them

in their fields or brought them presents such as a new musical instrument in order to

thank them for their help. He sometimes worked in the field with them, brought them

supplies (potatoes or tobacco), or ran errands for them in town or in the capital.

Collectors often helped informants to fill out paperwork and to contact the proper

authorities in order to profit from government programs and schemes202. While the

collectors helped their informants in many ways, no compensation was ever given to

informants for their work, and very few ever asked for any form of monetary

compensation203.

The departure of one of the full-time field collectors could have a profound

impact on the lives of his informants and others in the community, perhaps as much

so as his arrival. Ennis’ departure proved to be difficult for Ó Caodháin and other

members of his family. “Colm’s mother was crying as I was leaving, and Colm was

not far off. I was sad because I am so fond of Colm204.” Many of Murphy’s

informants in Glenhull had trouble going on as before once the collector had left. Two

of his closest friends as well as trusted informants, Michael Morris and Francis

Daniel, moved to England after Murphy left Glenhull205. Annie McCrae, who was the

first person Murphy met in the area, also decided to leave Glenhull after Murphy’s

departure. “I couldn’t stick it here after yous leave. I’ll go into the Home in Derry. I

201 Ennis,169. 202 Ibid,234. 203 Ó Súilleabhain, Four Symposia, 13. 204 Ennis,227. 205 Murphy,90.

46

won’t live long now anyhow. I’m prepared. I have all the Masses paid for206.” While

the impact made by the full-time collector on the people he collected from is

apparent, the impact of his collection on the declining folk tradition is not clear and

merits further study.

Regardless of the impact folklorists exercised on their informants, the impact

of his work on the study of Irish folklore is incontrovertible. Despite the difficulties

they faced, they worked tirelessly to amass a wealth of folklore unprecedented in

Ireland before the Irish Folklore Commission. While previous attempts to collect the

folklore of Ireland had been made, none of these attempts were done on the scale of

collection made by the Commission. Nor were previous collectors as meticulous in

their collection as those who worked for the Commission. Field collectors for the

Commission gathered more than a million handwritten pages between 1935 and

1970207. Despite this legacy, much of the material collected by the Commission

remains unpublished and inaccessible to non-Irish speakers.

Although the Commission was expected to publish the material it collected

under its terms of service 208 , little publication of the collected material was

undertaken. The Commission’s archivist, Seán Ó Súilleabháin, would later claim that

publication was discouraged, even prevented, by the Director Séamus Ó Duilearga209.

Some of material that the folklorists gathered was, however, published in the journal

of the Folklore of Ireland Society, Béaloideas, run by Ó Duilearga himself. The

collectors themselves published little material outside of Béaloideas.

Material assembled by the collectors as well as their field diaries were sent to

the Head Office in Dublin. The collector was not likely to ever see this material

206 Murphy, 91. 207 Seán Ó Súilleabhain, introduction to Folktales, xxxv. 208 Briody,521. 209 Ibid, 378-379.

47

again210. In fact, only one full-time field collector, Michael J. Murphy, ever published

material about his experience as a field collector. Not until 2009, when Ríonach uí

Ógáin translated and published the field diary of Séamus Ennis, did any collector’s

field diary appear in print. These men who worked relentlessly to save Ireland’s

folklore and music from the jaws of death have received little to no recognition for

the monumental task that they undertook. While the publication of Ennis’ field diary

is an important development in the history of the Commission, further publication and

translation of the field diaries held in the National Folklore Collection is needed.

Much of the material collected by the intrepid folklorists has not yet been

translated and remains unpublished, and inaccessible to those unable to consult the

National Folklore Collection or who have not mastered the Irish language. Of the

roughly one million pages of material which make up the National Folklore

Collection, around 85% is written in Irish 211 . While the Irish language has

continuously posed a problem to foreign scholars of Irish folklore, the declining use

of Irish in Ireland also threatens to further alienate those scholars who would wish to

utilize the great wealth of material collected for further study of Irish folklore and

folklore collection212. While translation and publication of the entire collection seems

rather unlikely and utterly unfeasible, additional publication of a minor fraction of the

Collection could open up new avenues of exploration for scholars of Irish folklore

and folkloristics.

One option to encourage study and research using the National Folklore

Collection is further digitization of the NFC’s holdings. Some material, mainly from

the Schools’ Manuscript Collection, has been made available to a wider public by the

210 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia, 16. 211 Ó Súilleabháin,“Opportunities in the Irish Folklore Commission,”122. 212 According to the 2011 Census conducted by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland, 41.4% of the population of Ireland can speak Irish and most of those only in an education setting.

48

digitization of excerpts from the Collection213. The launch of the Béal Beo website in

2012214 as well as the digitization of some folk music215 and other audio216 has made

some of the material held in the National Folklore Collection available to a wider

audience. Digital publication of collectors’ field diaries as well as folklore material

could greatly enhance the research currently being done on the Commission as well as

different aspects of popular culture in Ireland217. Further digitization of material

collected by the Commission would enable further research on the Commission, its

work, and the National Folklore Collection’s holdings.

Although the legacy of the Irish Folklore Commission and its full-time field

collectors is immense, significant oversights were made in the scope of the collection.

Some material was considered to be either more important or more authentic than

other material. Collection of this material was given priority by the Commission and

its collectors. There was, however, a great deal of material whose collection the

Commission did not deem to be of vital importance and they believed that such

material did not necessitate immediate collection. As a result there are significant

gaps in the Commission’s collections, now the National Folklore Collection at

University College Dublin. Although not completely ignored, lore from women,

urban areas, and the Galltacht of Ireland are significantly underrepresented in the

213 Some of the material collected during the Schools’ Scheme 1937/38 can be found at http://digital.ucd.ie/view/ivrla:7613#SMS8/12-SMS%2012a. Last accessed 14 May 2013. 214 The website consists of Ediphone recordings which can be accessed via http://www.bealbeo.ie/ediphone/index.html. Last accessed 14 May 2013. 215 Music files digitized by the National Folklore Collection can be accessed via the NFC’s website at http://www.ucd.ie/irishfolklore/en/irishfolkmusic/. Last accessed 14 May 2013. 216 Digitized audio files recorded on wax cylinder, gramophone and magnetic tape are available via the NFC’s website at http://www.ucd.ie/irishfolklore/en/audio/. Last accessed 14 May 2013. 217 Two studies currently exist on subjects in which folklore is not usually utilized. Guy Beiner’s study Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory (Wisconsin Press: Madison, 2007) examines the 1798 Rebellion using material from the NFC. Niall Ó Cosáin also utilized the NFC’s holdings in his study “Approaching A Folklore Archive, The Irish Folklore Commission and the Memory of the Great Famine,” (Folklore, Vol 115, No 2, Aug. 2004, pp 222-232).

49

Collection. Supplementary fieldwork to gather lore in these areas could lead to a

deeper and more balanced understanding of the folklore of Ireland.

From 1935 until its transfer in 1970, the Irish Folklore Commission did not

employ a single female full-time field collector218. As collection was facilitated by

complicity found among people of the same gender, the material collected by the

male full-time field collectors came primarily from male informants. In particular,

folk beliefs about sex were not breached between male collectors and female

informants. Even Seán Ó Súilleabháin’s massive 669-page Handbook is

uncharacteristically laconic about the subject219. Some collectors, such as Michael J.

Murphy, were able to overcome gender barriers and to collect from female

informants. While Murphy himself performed some of the collection of material from

his female informants, his wife Alice helped him significantly 220. One of the

collections made by Alice from the women of Glenhull was the “Infidelity Test,” in

which a woman, suspected of adultery, was put into a shed, naked, with a bull. If the

bull attacked the woman, then she was guilty; if the woman remained unharmed, she

was innocent221. A male collector would not have been able to collect such material,

even from an elderly woman222. With the changes in sexual mores experienced in

Ireland in the 20th century and the absence of collection in this subject area, much of

the folk belief concerning sexual practices and lore will undoubtedly pass out of folk

memory without further collection.

The National Folklore Collection is also further limited by the priority given

by the Commission to rural Irish lore, deemed “authentic,” over the less “authentic”

218 Briody,461. 219 Briody suggests that Ó Súilleabháin may have excluded such material in fear of censorship from the Irish Censorship Board. (Briody,470). 220 Murphy,38. 221 Ibid,54. 222 Ibid,38.

50

lore collected in English in either rural or urban settings. The Commission and its

collectors believed that lore collected in the Irish language was more authentically

Irish than that material collected in English223. The Gaeltacht were given priority for

full-time collection and fluency in Irish was an essential skill for the full-time

folklorist to have224. The Galltacht of Ireland were left to part-time collectors, school

children, and questionnaire correspondents until the appointment of Michael J.

Murphy as a full-time collector in 1949225. Only one other non-Irish speaker, Jim

Delaney, was ever appointed to the post of full-time collector for the Commission.

Delaney, who worked for the Commission from 1954 through the transfer to

University College Dublin in 1970, was also the only full-time collector to collect in

the city and County of Dublin226. Since collection was concentrated in the more rural

Gaeltacht, collection of English language as well as urban lore—particularly in

densely populated Dublin—was significantly underrepresented. As a result of this

focus on “authentic” material, only about 15% of the folk material housed in the

National Folklore Collection is in English227. Further study of the material collected

in English as well as extended collection of urban material is merited in order to

accurately understand the folklore and popular history of Ireland.

Despite these limitations, the material of National Folklore Collection

amassed by the full-time field collectors of the Irish Folklore Commission remains an

important repository of knowledge, which can be utilized in the advancement of the

study of Irish folklore, folk music, and folkloristics. While the material collected may

not be representative of the entire Irish population, it still holds insights into the

223 Clodagh Brennan Harvey, Contemporary Irish Traditional Narrative: The English Language Tradition (Berkley: University of California Press, 1992), 54. 224 Ó Súilleabháin, Four Symposia,5. 225 Murphy,7. 226 Briody,526. 227 Ó Súilleabháin, “Opportunities in the Irish Folklore Commission,”122.

51

Ireland of times gone by. Further research is necessary to understand the impacts of

the folklorists on their informants and the communities in which they lived. Further

publication, translation, and digitization of material in the holdings of the National

Folklore Collection is merited and could open up innumerable opportunities for

research within the field of folklore and in other related fields. Further collection of

lore is also necessary to supplement the Collection in areas of which, heretofore, have

experienced limited collection such as sex beliefs and urban lore.

52

Conclusion

The work of the full-time field collectors of the Irish Folklore Commission

was essential to the development of the National Folklore Collection as well as the

advancement of the study of Folklore in Ireland. While others had collected the

folklore of Ireland before the days of the Commission, none undertook the endeavor

with the same meticulous precision, innovation of methods and materials, and results

as the full-time field collectors of the Commission. Their efforts would enable the

Commission to amass a collection of over a million pages of folklore in less than

forty years and to develop the world renowned National Folklore Collection. This

Collection has the potential to open a wealth of material for further scholarly research

in several fields including: folklore, popular history and tradition, and folk music.

While the full-time field collectors formed an integral cog in the machine of

the Commission, they were not the only working part contributing to the

accomplishments of the Commission. Recognition must be given to the efforts of the

other men, and occasionally women, who made up the fabric of the Commission. The

Irish Folklore Commission would never have existed without the vision and

perseverance of the founder and Director, Séamus Ó Duilearga. Nor would the

National Folklore Collection have been able to be catalogued and maintained without

the innovation and work of the archivist Seán Ó Súilleabháin. These two men worked

from the very beginning of the Commission in 1935 until its transfer in 1970 to

collect and preserve the folklore of Ireland228. They often helped and encouraged the

full-time collectors giving them the support necessary in order to carry out their

monumental task. While there is a fair amount of research concerning the work of

Séamus Ó Duilearga, the work of the archivist, Seán Ó Súilleabhain merits further

228 Ó Duilearga retired shortly after the transfer and Ó Súilleabháin stayed on until his retirement in 1974.

53

study. Ó Súilleabháin’s monumental A Handbook of Irish Folklore as well as his

adaptation of the Swedish system of cataloguing for the Commission’s archives could

work as the basis for a study of its own.

In addition to the Director and the Head Archivist, the full-time collectors

depended heavily on the work of others before them to collect the folklore of Ireland.

Contacts made for the Commission by schoolchildren during the Schools’ Scheme of

1937-38, could become informants for the full-time field collector. The

schoolteachers who helped to orchestrate the scheme often helped the full-time

collectors find new informants and worked as contacts for them in new areas of

collection. The collection undertaken by the schoolchildren also supplemented the

Main Manuscript Collection as well as providing information from areas never visited

by a full-time collector of the Commission. The material collected under the Schools’

Scheme as well as the experiences of those who participated offer a wealth of primary

source accounts that heretofore remain relatively untapped by scholars. The collectors

also relied heavily on the work undertaken by the surveyors who conducted the

Ordnance Survey in Ireland. The Ordnance Survey maps served as an important piece

of equipment for the full-time field collector.

While the work of both the Head Office and other types of collectors helped

the full-time collector to undertake their collection, the innovations in methodology

and materials used by the Commission ensured a methodical and meticulous

collection of folk material which had not been seen in the previous century. While

folklore amateurs such as W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory had endeavored to collect

the folklore of Ireland, their methods and collection left much to be desired. They did

not cite their sources and often altered the tales told to them in order to please their

literary sentiments. Full-time collectors of the Commission were the first to take

54

meticulous notes as well as Ediphone recordings of the material told them by

informants. The Commission supplied the collectors with the notebooks, pen and

paper, and Ediphone cylinders necessary to ensure fastidious collection. They were

also required to keep detailed journals about their collection and experiences that can

be utilized to acquire further insight into the life and challenges of the full-time

collector as well as to supplement the material they collected. These journals serve as

important sources in the history of folklore and folk music collection in Ireland. Only

one of these journals has been translated into English and published. The publication

and translation of additional field journals of full-time collectors could greatly

enhance the study of Folklore and Folkloristics in Ireland.

As for the full-time collectors themselves, their meticulous work helped to

revitalize and to preserve the folklore and folk music of Ireland for future generations

of amateurs and scholars alike. Their contribution cannot be overlooked. These men

devoted their lives to the collection of folk material. Their tireless efforts to find

informants, to create a rapport with them, and to collect what material they had helped

to shape the National Folklore Collection and the study of Folklore and Folklorisitcs

in Ireland. Their passion and initiative allowed them to undertake a monumental task

and to collect a wealth of material, which with further translation and publication can

enhance many fields of academic research. The limited amount of published material

on these men’s lives and their work has confined this study to examining the

experiences of only two of the collectors. Further publication is necessary to better

understand the mechanization of the Irish Folklore Commission and the advances

made by those who worked for it. Further insight into the impact of the folklorist on

those they collected from could also provide for additional research projects.

55

While the amount of folk material collected by the Commission and its

folklorists was innovative and unprecedented in the history of Irish folklore, the

collection made was not without its faults. The recordings made using Ediphone

machine, which was the main recording device used up until the 1960s and 1970s by

the Commission, are of poor sound quality and are therefore difficult to use for

research. In addition to the poor sound quality produced by the Ediphone machine, it

utilized wax cylinders that were shaved at the Head Office for reuse by the collectors.

This recycling of the cylinders, while financially pragmatic, erased forever the voices

of many of the Commission’s informants. Some Ediphone recordings as well as

gramophone and later tape recordings are, however, still kept in the National Folklore

Collection.

The limitations of the National Folklore Collection do not stop at the poor

quality of Ediphone records. Oversights made by the Director of the Commission,

others in charge as well as the collectors themselves led to unbalanced collection of

subject matter and material. The idea of an “Irish” Ireland promoted by the Gaelic

Revival, Republicans, and in the post-independence era by Éamon de Valera and his

government also permeated the ideology of the Irish Folklore Commission. “Irish”

Ireland was thought to be Gaelic or Irish-speaking, Catholic, and rural. As a result the

Commission and its collectors concentrated their efforts to collect folk material in the

Gaeltacht and rural areas of Ireland all the while largely ignoring Galltacht and urban

areas. That 85% of the material in the Main Manuscript Collection is in Irish is no

coincidence. While Irish language and rural material benefited from this bias for what

was “Irish,” much of the mostly uncollected material of Ireland’s Galltacht and urban

areas was lost, possibly forever. Collection of material by and from women was an

additional opportunity missed by the Commission to enhance its collections. Further

56

research using available material is merited along with additional field collection in

these areas. Despite these oversights made by those who set out to collect, preserve

and publish the folklore and folk music of Ireland, their endeavors were on the whole

successful. While the collection could certainly be more balanced and could profit

from further collection, publication, and increased accessibility, its contribution to

scholarly research on folklore and life in Ireland is immeasurable. The possibilities

for further scholarly investigation and research are also innumerable.

57

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Murphy, Michael J. Tyrone Folk Quest. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1973. Ó Súilleabháin, Seán. Introduction to Folktales of Ireland. Edited and translated by

Seán Ó Súilleabháin. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966. Ó Súilleabháin, Seán. The Handbook of Irish Folklore. 1942; Hatboro, PA:

Folklore Associates, INC., 1963 Reprint. Conferences: Ó Súilleabháin, Seán. Four Symposia on Folklore. Edited by Stith Thompson. 1953;

Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976 Reprint. Lomax, Alex. Four Symposia on Folklore. Edited by Stith Thompson. 1953;

Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976 Reprint. Government Papers: “The Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) Act 1922, Article 4,” last

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Ó Duilearga, Séamus. “Séamus Ó Duilearga to Carl Wilhelm von Sydow dated 4.12.1936, 3-4.” Lund University Library, Carl Wilhelm Von Sydow Papers quoted and translated in Briody, The Irish Folklore Commission 1935-1970: History, Ideology, Methodology. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2007 (page 299).

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Uí Ógáin, Ríonach. “In Search of Music and Song: The Field Diary of Séamus Ennis, 1942-1946. Ars Lyrica Celtica 17 (2010): 1-23.