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Irish folklore. The lead section (first paragraph) will be your introduction.

What other sections do you plan to have in your article? (Susan)

Folklore "is the traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practice that is disseminated largely through oral communication and behavioural example". Folklore is a part of a groups identity, their traditions, beliefs, worldviews, knowledge (how to build a house, how to treat an illness), skills (art) and talents ( story-telling, songs, plays). Folklore is a big part of a groups', countries' culture. Due to its complexity folklore has no one definition.

Irish Folklore when mentioned to many people conjures up images of banshees, fairy stories and leprechauns and people gathered around sharing stories of a man as strong a 300 men put together. This is all well and good but there is an academic value to folklore as it gives an insight into people's daily life, their hopes and fears. When studied an understanding of how we live and why we do the things we do is involved. There are central significant characteristics in the Irish folklore tradition;the Irish language, our literary and linguistic inheritance and religion, both pre-christian and christian.

Folklore is about people. Just as many tales and legends were passed from generation to generations so are how we celebrate important moment such as marriages, deaths, birthday and holidays ( Christmas, Halloween( Oíche Shamhna), St. Patrick's Day) and also how we hand down skills such as making weaved baskets, St. Bridget's crosses. This all Folklore as it is the study and appreciation of how people lived.

Classic Irish folklore

Bunworth Banshee, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland by Thomas Crofton Croker, 1825

Irish folklore consists of many classics that are repeated to this day. Folktales which are popular in Ireland consist of the Otherworld ( An Saol Eile ), which revolves around the idea of supernatural manifestations and beings. These beings are shown in many of the folkloristic genres such as ballads, popular song, legends, memorates, belief statements and folkloric material. Some famous examples from this include the Irish fairylore and restless souls and spirits around Halloween , for example the Banshee.

The Banshee is one of the most popular classics to this day ,known by many different names for example Badh commonly used in the south of Ireland. The Banshee is also rumoured to have a connection with certain families is said to follow the prominent male members of the family. Popular opinion is also that she is seen as the ancestress of Irish families and is deeply concerned with the families fortunes. It is uncertain whether the Banshee is evil or good.

Other classics include , leprechauns , fairies, rainbows , Cu Chluain , Children of Lir , Dullahan (headless horsemen), Pookas , Changelings .

Title page of Irish Fairy Tales, illustrated by Arthur Rackham

Traditions in Irish Folklore

The word folklore in French means “picturesque but without importance or without deep significance”. In Ireland the word Folk Lore has deep meaning to it's people and brings societies together, it is a word that has ideological significance in this country. In Ireland folklore can be associated with the countryside , specifically the Irish speaking West, Aran Islands , oral stories , the fiddle , intimate settings. Folklore is also massively tied with traditional Irish music and dance for example the river dance can be tied to folklore in ways.

Seán Ó Súilleabháin (1903-1996) and the Irish Folklore Commission

Ó Súilleabháin was part of the Irish Folklore Commision , Béaloideas. Not long after the foundation of the commission he created two books for the collectors. The first, in 1937, a shorter volume in the Irish Language, Láimh-Leabhar Béaloideasa, mainly used by collectors in the Irish speaking areas. In 1942 he wrote his more well-known volume A Handbook of Irish Folklore (published 1947). To this day his work serves as a great resource to collectors of Irish folklore and provides a wide outline of the traditions of Irish Folklore.

He also wrote a booklet of topics, in bothIrish and English, in 1937 to be used by teachers and school children in primary schools in the South of Ireland as part of the Schools' Scheme for the collection of folklore (1937-1938).

The evolution of Irish Folklore

During the 17^th century, the English conquest as overthrown the traditional political and religious autonomy of the country. The Great famine of 1840’s, and the deaths and emigration it has brought, weaken a still powerful Gaelic culture, especially within the rural proletariat, which was at the time the most traditional social grouping. Moreover, in the last decades, capitalism has helped overcoming special spatial barriers (HARVEY, 1990) (check le cours sur Harvey du s5)

All those events have led to a massive decline of native learned Gaelic traditions and Irish language, and a loss of identity and historical continuity, in a similar nature to Durkheim’s anomie.

Honko (1991) describes the current state of the Irish folklore as its “second life”. Even tough there is still a natural existence of folklore within its natural community (examples), folklore material is now being used in other environments, such as marketing (with strategies suggesting tradition and authenticity for goods), dance, movies… (examples, examples, examples)

Sub sections with examples of “second life” folklore?

The protection of tradition has always been a common theme in the Irish cultural life, the birth of new ones is also a matter of interest:

              (examples)