'For the Irish, especially those involved in the Celtic
revival, belief in fairies was a political and cultural necessity. Irish
interest in what was perceived as a national and ethnic inheritance is not
surprising'. (Silver, 1986)
'Within and outside academic
circles, many remain confused about what constitutes Irish folklore, and what
its relationship is, or should be, to literature'
the term “folklore” was not coined
until 1846 when the English antiquary William
John Thoms, under the pseudonym Ambrose Merton, first used the term in a letter
published in the English periodical, The Athenaeum. Thoms proposed “a good Saxon compound, Folk-Lore—the Lore of
the People” to denote “the manners, customs observances, superstitions,
ballads, proverbs, &c of the olden time.the designation of the term
folklore as “a good Saxon compound” introduces an element of national ideology
that persisted in the subsequent development of folkloric discourse.
Members of the Gaelic League were
instrumental in founding the Folklore of Ireland Society (An Cumann le
Béaloideas Éireann) in 1927.
the Cumann na nGael
government awarded a small grant in 1930 to
fund the foundation of the Irish Folklore Institute. In 1935, the Irish Folklore Commission
replaced this body and the first full-time folklore collectors were appointed.
Irish writers in English have employed folk traditions. links
have been posited between Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales and the Irish folk
tradition
Ó Giolláin proposes that “folklore,
then, can be understood as representing a world-view alternative to the
official conception of the world.”
Alan Dundes rejects the “narrow
nineteenth-century definition of folk as
‘European peasant’” in favor of the more liberal recognition that the term “can
refer to any group
of people whatsoever who
share at least one common factor.”18 This recognition acknowledges that
cultural osmosis between groups and genres is possible. cultural osmosis
operated in both directions—traditional narratives were adapted, and altered,
as a result of changing cultural circumstances by both the poor and the
privileged.
1
For Carleton, personal experience of Irish folk customs facilitated an accurate
depiction of Irish rural life; his fiction, grounded in personal experience,
could be more authentic than ill informed reportage.
The contribution made by Irish
periodicals, both popular and scholarly, to the promulgation of Irish folklore
indicates the extent to which folklore had become a lingua franca, negotiating
rather than transcending the cultural and political barriers that separated the
rural poor and educated urban readers during the nineteenth century.
folklore
can either reinforce social norms or provoke delight in seeing them infringed.
Lady
Wilde perceives an intimate connection between folklore and national identity:
“the legends have a peculiar and special value as coming direct from the
national heart” Ireland, thus, becomes the site of mystic communion between the
visible and the invisible, a place where the imaginative, figurative, and
spiritual take precedence over the merely factual, literal, and material.
belief
in the inestimable importance of Irish folklore, both to the Irish psyche
The
uncertain provenance of the legend on which The Countess Cathleen is based
suggests that the play is best
regarded not as a literary folk drama, but as a stylized spiritual allegory,
For Yeats, folk belief was a spiritual discourse that could be
manipulated to explore his personal dilemmas and to test his dramatic theories about a
poetic, ritualistic theater. Folklore
could be stylized to produce plays that would enable Ireland to take its
place on the new world stage of emergent experimental theatre.
For
Synge, Irish folklore provided the amniotic fluid not only for his unique
dramatic idiom, but also for the subject matter of his plays.
the
interplay between tradition and innovation, between authenticity and
representation,
the
abiding power of Irish folklore resides not only in what it reveals about vanished communities, but
also in its apparently endless capacity to stimulate creativity, national
debate, and ongoing critical enquiry. (all above: Markey 2006)
References:
Silver, C. (1986). On the Origin of Fairies: Victorians, Romantics, and Folk Belief. Browning Institute Studies, 14, p.141.Markey, A. (2006). The Discovery of Irish Folklore. New Hibernia Review, 10(4), pp.21-43.
