REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE FOLKLORE SOCIETY OF IRELAND 75TH COMMEMORATIVE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE FOLKLORE SOCIETY OF IRELAND 75TH COMMEMORATIVE VOLUME
I dtosach báire ba mhaith liom a rá go bhfuil an-áthas orm a bheith anseo inniu chun an t-eagrán speisialta seo den iris Béaloideas a sheoladh. Mar is eol don chuid is mó agaibh bunaíodh an Cumann le Béaloideas Éireann i mí na Samhna 1926, rud a fhágann go bhfuil 75 bliain slánaithe anois aige. Táimid bailithe anseo inniu más ea, chun bunú an Chumainn seo leathchéad go leith blian ó shin a cheiliúradh.
I am truly delighted to have been asked here today to join with you in celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the The Folklore Society of Ireland and to launch the special edition of Béaloideas. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Anraí Ó Braonáin for his kind invitation to join you today.
Looking at heritage websites lately, I came across one devoted to a particular Irish surname. Many people had posted queries on the site about their own ancestry. They were invariably scarce on details - they had little more than vague facts about agreat-grandparent - I was told he worked on a boat - his wool business in Ireland failed, they came from Kilmacthomas in 1850. The e-mails were from all over the world, many still bearing the old surname, spelt in a variety of ways. There was clear evidence of a clan long scattered across the earth and with it the scattering too of memory.
Reading the hunger for information which was evident in the queries, I was struck by the ease with which a large part of the information and knowledge so crucial to shaping our personal landscapes, disappears out of our grasp. Many of us have reason to be grateful for the volunteer family chronicler, the person who gathers the stories, the photographs, the dates, who makes it their business not to lose the pathway to the past. Keeping the pathway open, signposting it properly, knowing its landmarks well, these are things to be grateful for but never to take for granted. In the early part of the last century the newly founded Folklore of Ireland Society, set about the inspired work of systematically collecting, studying and publishing Irish folklore. In doing so they created a resource which is an endowment to the future, built on the saved legacy of the past. The founder members of An Cumann le Béaloideas Éireann were visionaries who knew the value and the vulnerability of that legacy and knowing those things they dedicated themselves to protecting and promoting it. The great legends of the Gaelic revival are counted among their number – An Seabhac, Pádraig Ó Siocfradha; An Craoibhín Aoibhinn, Douglas Hyde, who became the first Professor of Irish at UCD and our first President of Ireland; and of course Fionán Mac Coluim.
I had the honour in November, 1999 of unveiling a portrait of Seamus Ó Duilearga (James Delargy)in Newman House to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the first editor of Béaloideas. The tremendous legacy of Irish folklore we have inherited is thanks to his many years of enthusiastic collecting and painstaking research. Indeed, much of the rich heritage of this country would have been lost to us today if it were not for those men and women of foresight who set down in writing our living musical and folklore traditions for future generations.
Since that historic first publication of Béaloideas we now have, in the Department of Irish Folklore, UCD, one of the largest and richest archives of traditional narrative in the world. Ireland has been a literate society for so long that the oral and written elements of our culture have become intricately mixed together. But in times when literacy was confined to the fortunate few, it was in traditional storytelling that many smaller communities throughout this island could best pass on their experiences, in the one truly frontierless language. That link back to where we came from, the people we came from and their stories told around firesides has played an important part in our collective memory, of times past, of customs and traditions past but not forgotten thanks to you, because of your work.
Folklore has contributed much to our education by assisting in the promotion of social cohesion, cultural understanding and mutual respect for different traditions. It adds to the sense of belonging, and opens the minds particularly of young people into the attitudes and demands of civil and religious life encountered by previous generations of our people. Generations of collectors and researchers of Irish folklore have ensured that this wonderful resource will be of major benefit to the preservation of our cultural identity - providing us as it does with a valuable link to our past, to the life experiences of our grandparents, great-grandparents and beyond – the difficulties and challenges they faced, at worst overwhelming, at best surmountable, only with enormous effort. As long as people have used language to communicate, stories have been told and folklore has in one form or another provided an emotional escape from life’s burdens, and has always held a special place in our hearts and minds because of the intrinsic ethnic emotional bond that storytelling evokes in people from all cultures and all walks of life.
We cherish the past as a treasure and a resource, as a unique part of our heritage, because we know that is not in any way incompatible with being a modern, forward-looking nation, a nation that enables different traditions to meet and embrace in a shared celebration of Irish culture. Your Society attracts people from all political and religious backgrounds, in a common exploration and enjoyment of Irish mythology and folklore. In a lifetime devoted to the collection and preservation of Ireland’s cultural inheritance, your society encourages awareness of the many strands of cultural identity we all share, while never seeking to eradicate the different religious, social and political affiliations which enrich it, enabling us to appreciate our past without being confined by it.
This special edition of the journal is not only a celebration of the Society but also a celebration of the members who first engaged on this journey some three quarters of a century ago. Pádraig Mac Gréine is one man who deserves a special mention today. At 101 years of age Pádraig has seen another of the dreams envisioned by the founding members of the society come to fruition today. I congratulate all of you for a legacy of Irish folklore and literacy which has been cared for, protected and sustained by your Society as you would tend a wonderful garden. I hope that you will continue to nurture and cultivate this garden for many years to come.
Guím gach rath ar an gCumann agus tugann sé pléisiúr mór dom an t-eagrán speisialta seo de Béaloideas a sheoladh anois.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.