The Centre for Celtic Studies cordially invite everyone interested to the next meeting of the Celtic Research Group will take place on Friday April 5th at 15.00 in Room F (Coll. Martineum). Our speaker will be Dr Seaghan Mac an tSionnaigh (Uppsala University, Sweden) who will give a talk entitled "Dúthaigh na súpanna”: an insight into “souper territory” from the folklore of Corca Dhuibhne.
Time: Friday, April 5th, 15.00
Place: Room F, Collegium Martineum
ABSTRACT
West Kerry storyteller Seán Mac Criomhthain (1873 - 1955) was born almost a quarter-century after the Great Irish Famine. Nevertheless, his upbringing occurred in a context which included both overt and covert references to the kinds of sectarian divisions which initially had contributed to the famine, and which later were entrenched by it. Sectarian division in the Irish context expressed itself primarily via denominational attachment, and to a lesser extent, along linguistic lines. Such divisions were explored across the country through traditional lore and through song; and in the specific repertoire of Seán Mac Criomhthain, through the medium of a mellifluous brand of Munster Irish for which the Dingle peninsula has since become renowned. This lecture will attempt to describe attitudes to sectarian division in the evidence of Mac Criomhthain’s repertoire. It will be argued that concerns of immediate social pragmatism are afforded much greater importance than denominational or linguistic attachments.