The first of its kind, Irish Folklore is a key text that uses Nordic ethnography methods and Latin American culture theory to explain how differing groups legitimise their own identities by identifying with notions drawn from folklore.

The Event and its Terrors undertakes a critical reimagining of one of the major events of Irish history—the Great Famine of the 1840s—and of its subsequent legacies. Drawing on a wide range of sources, past and present, it considers the emergence of the Famine as an object of historical knowledge and controversy with reference both to the experience of modernity and to the production of academic and nationalist histories in colonial and post-independence Ireland. In doing so, it explores the possibility of alternative modes of engagement with the past via contemporary eyewitness accounts, oral histories, literature, folklore, and present-day commemorative events.

This collection of articles provides rich and diverse insights into the historical dynamics of folkloristic thought with its shifting geographies, shared spaces, centres and borderlands. By focusing on intellectual collaboration and sharing, the volume also reveals the limitations, barriers and boundaries inherent in scholarship and scholarly communities. Folklore scholars from Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, and the USA reflect upon a range of related questions, including: To what extent and in what sense can folklore studies be regarded as a shared field of knowledge? Which lines of authority have held it together and what forces have led to segmentation? How have the hierarchies of intellectual centres and peripheries shifted over time? Do national or regional styles of scholarly practice exist in folkloristics? The contributors here pay attention to individual personalities, the politics and economics of scholarship, and forms of communication as meaningful contexts for discussing the dynamics of folklore theory and methods.

A Companion to Folklore presents an original and comprehensive collection of essays from international experts in the field of folklore studies. Unprecedented in depth and scope, this state-of-the-art collection uniquely displays the vitality of folklore research across the globe. An unprecedented collection of original, state of the art essays on folklore authored by international experts Examines the practices and theoretical approaches developed to understand the phenomena of folklore Considers folklore in the context of multi-disciplinary topics that include poetics, performance, religious practice, myth, ritual and symbol, oral textuality, history, law, politics and power as well as the social base of folklore Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title

For much of the 20th century, Catholics in Ireland spent significant amounts of time engaged in religious activities. This book documents their experience in Limerick city between the 1920s and 1960s, exploring the connections between that experience and the wider culture of an expanding and modernising urban environment. Síle de Cléir discusses topics including ritual activities in many contexts: the church, the home, the school, the neighbourhood and the workplace. The supernatural belief underpinning these activities is also important, along with creative forms of resistance to the high levels of social control exercised by the clergy in this environment. De Cléir uses a combination of in-depth interviews and historical ethnographic sources to reconstruct the day-to-day religious experience of Limerick city people during the period studied. This material is enriched by ideas drawn from anthropological studies of religion, while perspectives from both history and ethnology also help to contextualise the discussion. With its unique focus on everyday experience, and combination of a traditional worldview with the modernising city of Limerick – all set against the backdrop of a newly-independent Ireland - Popular Catholicism in 20th-century Ireland presents a fascinating new perspective on 20th-century Irish social and religious history.

This is the first anthropological study of writers, writing and contemporary literary culture. Drawing on the flourishing literary scene in Ireland as the basis for her research, Helena Wulff explores the social world of contemporary Irish writers, examining fiction, novels, short stories as well as journalism. Discussing writers such as John Banville, Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín, Frank McCourt, Anne Enright, Deirdre Madden, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Colum McCann, David Park, and Joseph O ́Connor, Wulff reveals how the making of a writer’s career is built on the ‘rhythms of writing’: long hours of writing in solitude alternate with public events such as book readings and media appearances. Destined to launch a new field of enquiry, Rhythms of Writing is essential reading for students and scholars in anthropology, literary studies, creative writing, cultural studies, and Irish studies.

A New History of Ireland is the largest scholarly project in modern Irish history. In 9 volumes, it provides a comprehensive new synthesis of modern scholarship on every aspect of Irish history and prehistory, from the earliest geological and archaeological evidence, through the Middle Ages, down to the present day. Volume VII covers a period of major significance in Ireland's history. It outlines the division of Ireland and the eventual establishment of the Irish Republic. It provides comprehensive coverage of political developments, north and south, as well as offering chapters on the economy, literature in English and Irish, the Irish language, the visual arts, emigration and immigration, and the history of women. The contributors to this volume, all specialists in their field, provide the most comprehensive treatment of these developments of any single-volume survey of twentieth-century Ireland.

In Dance in Ireland: Steps, Stages and Stories, Sharon Phelan provides an in-depth view of dance in Ireland during the colonial and post-colonial eras. She presents dance as an integral part of Irish life and as a signifier of cultural change. Central themes are documented and analysed. They include cross-cultural influences, the dance master and pantomimic dance traditions, dance during the Gaelic Revival, dichotomies in dance, and the theatricalisation of Irish dance. The book is illustrated with photographs and it is an indispensable resource for academics and artists alike, as they continue to foster dance, on the page and on the stage.

Focusing on the mythological narratives that influence Irish children's literature, this book examines the connections between landscape, time and identity, positing that myth and the language of myth offer authors and readers the opportunity to engage with Ireland's culture and heritage. It explores the recurring patterns of Irish mythological narratives that influence literature produced for children in Ireland between the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries. A selection of children's books published between 1892, when there was an escalation of the cultural pursuit of Irish independence and 2016, which marked the centenary of the Easter 1916 rebellion against English rule, are discussed with the aim of demonstrating the development of a pattern of retrieving, re-telling, remembering and re-imagining myths in Irish children's literature. In doing so, it examines the reciprocity that exists between imagination, memory, and childhood experiences in this body of work.

This book is the first sustained attempt to incorporate critical scholarship and thought at the cutting edge of contemporary geography, history and archaeology into the burgeoning field of Irish heritage studies. It seeks to illustrate the validity of multiple depictions of the Irish past, showing how scrutiny of heritage practices and meanings is so essential for illuminating our understanding of the present. Examining Ireland's heritages from a critical perspective that celebrates notions of heterogeneity and uniqueness, the distinguished contributors to this book scrutinise the multiplicity of complex relations between heritage, history, memory, commemoration, economy, and cultural identity within various historical, geographical and archaeological contexts. Using several examples and case studies, this book raises issues not only from a uniquely Irish perspective, but also investigates the memorialisation and marketing of the Irish past in overseas locations such as the USA and Australia.