The Irish Folklore Commission (''Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann'' in

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

) was set up in 1935 by the

Irish Government The Government of Ireland ( ga, Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland. The Constitution of Ireland vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the , the head of government. The gover ...

to study and collect information on the

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...

and

tradition A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

s of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

History

Séamus Ó Duilearga Séamus Ó Duilearga (born James Hamilton Delargy; 26 May 1899 – 25 June 1980) was an Irish folklorist, professor of folklore at University College Dublin and Director of the Irish Folklore Commission. Born in Cushendall, Co Antrim, he was one ...

(James Hamilton Delargy) founded ''An Cumann le Béaloideas Éireann'' (The Folklore of Ireland Society) and its journal ''Béaloideas'' in 1927. Ó Duilearga prescribed a guideline for gathered oral tradition, for example, insisting that the collected data identified the informant's name and age as well as provenance of material. The Society would not only edit and publish the collected folklore, but endeavor to supply a translation or at least a summary in English or some suitable language. It was a call for the preservation of Irish folklore, and his countrymen heeded the appeal by sending in manuscripts to the Society, and these material would be published in the ''Béaloideas'' periodical. Public sentiment mounted that such a grave undertaking should not be left entirely to a voluntary society, and the Irish government established the ''Institiúid Bhéaloideas Éireann'' (The Irish Folk Institute) in 1930, to be headed by Ó Duilearga, with other board members of An Cumann recruited alongside. A few years later in 1935, the Irish Folklore Commission (''Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann'') was formed by the government when its precursor was deemed inadequate, and a larger organization which was better equipped felt needed. Ó Duilearga was appointed honorary director of the commission, and led its effort. The Commission continued its work by that name until 1971 when it was superseded by the Department of Irish Folklore the

University College, Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 33,284 student ...

. The department has since served as a repository of the data collected, including the Irish Folklore Collection, which later became the

National Folklore Collection The Irish Folklore Commission (''Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann'' in Irish) was set up in 1935 by the Irish Government to study and collect information on the folklore and traditions of Ireland. History Séamus Ó Duilearga (James Hamilton De ...

, at the UCD Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore and the National Folklore Collection.

Work and legacy

The commission was responsible for the collection of preservation of Irish folk tradition of all forms, with the additional tasks of cataloguing the material under classification, their study and exposition. With funding at a limit, the commission was often limited to six to nine collectors. While graduate and university students could be of great help as collectors, the commission was focused on Ireland's diverse populations. They went to fisherman, primary teachers, as well as professional collectors with the idea that "anyone who does go among the people must go among them as one of themselves and have no high-faluting nonsense about them". The Irish Folklore Commission also made an effort to collect folk music and song. Ó Duilearga professed to not being very musically oriented, and the commission hired Liam de Noraidh as full-time collector, until he had to resign in 1942 due to poor health, and replaced by Séamus Ennis, who used the

Ediphone Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity (c. 1896–1916), these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engra ...

recording device extensively. The commission was also closely involved with locals, especially Irish-speaking districts. They distributed questionnaires and used media outlets to inform the general public of the commission. The commission also began making recordings in 1948 of the dwindling number of

native speakers A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

Manx Gaelic Manx ( or , pronounced or ), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Manx is the historical language of the Manx people ...

on the

Isle of Man ) , anthem = " O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europ ...

, During its time, the extensive collecting by the Commission caught the attention of many foreign scholars. With greater recognition, Ó Duilearga's vision for the Commission grew and around the 1950s many scholars were participating by contributing to collections and research.

Recording devices

The commission owned a substantial collection of

recordings on cylinders, obtained through purchases (e.g. the Fr. Luke Donnellan folksong collection, acquired 1939) or from full-time music collectors by the time Ennis was hired in 1942, and he began by transcribing them onto paper, later using the Ediphone as recording instrument for field work, some time between 1943 and 1944 perhaps (the circumstances are unclear). The device, despite its shortcomings, did help them to collect lyrics more efficiently. The Ediphone was also used to record long folktales, although it could not be utilized in some cases, for example, some of the reciters were uncomfortable in its presence. The Ediphone was also prodigiously heavy, and together with a supply of cylinders, was cumbersome carrying across rough terrain. The commission could not afford a constant fresh supply of cylinders, so the recordings had to be reused and overwritten after being transcribed. Ó Duilearga had since the very beginning harbored the design of using the

gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

as recording device, since each vinyl disc was not more durable and far more affordable than the Ediphone wax cylinders. The problem of the machine's cost, some $500, was obviated when the Edison Company made a present of it free of charge, and the gramophone arrived at the Commission in June 1940. Unfortunately, the Commission at this time was unable to adapt the device for field work, and as WWII had already started, it was also difficult procuring parts from America or England. It would not be until 1947 that the commission would figure out how to use the gramophone for collecting folklore in the field. The Commission decided to purchase the necessary sets of mobile recording equipment on its meagre budget, if only to carry out the project of recording the remnants of the Manx language (1948). This had been something of a pet project of

Éamon de Valera Éamon de Valera (, ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of govern ...

's, though the politician had been rather sluggish in responding to the pleas of a budget for the proper equipment.

School's Collection

Among the Irish Folklore Commission's collections are written interviews recorded between 1937 and 1939. Known collectively as ''The School's Collection'', these interviews were conducted by more than 50,000 school children from all primary schools in the South of Ireland. The 1,128 volumes include written accounts are sorted of daily life as well as regional folklore and stories as told by the interviewees. This was instigated by Seán Ó Súilleabháin and

, who publicized the scheme and explained to teachers what folklore was and how to properly collect it. They met with principal teachers, who then explained to the children how to collect the folklore for the collection. From September to June, each week the teacher would choose a heading and read out the questions, and the children would copy it down and question their family members and neighbors. In June 1939, Ó Duilearga stated in his annual report that there were collectively 375,660 pages of books from the schools.

Dúchas Project

The Dúchas Project was founded by Falls Community Council in 1999, in order to collect experiences and stories of conflict. They imagined it as a tool for learning and conflict resolution in the future. The Dúchas Project is an online

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

effort to digitize and transcribe the National Folklore Collection in order to make it accessible and searchable worldwide. Based online, the project includes (1) both digitized and transcribed volumes of the collection; (2) a search feature to find people, topics, and places mentioned in the collections; (4) an index of Irish surnames, and (5) numerous historical photographs. Transcriptions of the collection are crowdsourced from around the world, and volunteers transcribe pages from the journal, allowing each page transcribed to become searchable from within the page itself and via internet search databases.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * *

External links

University College, Dublin
- Department of Irish Folklore
Folklore Photograph Collection. Selection of photographs from the National Folklore Collection which illustrates the work of the Irish Folklore Commission and its successors.
A UCD Digital Library Collection.
The Dúchas Project
- Website containing digitized and transcribed files from ''The School's Collection'' {{Authority control Irish folklore Cultural organisations based in the Republic of Ireland Organizations disestablished in 1971 Government agencies established in 1935 Folklore studies