Self-collection of folklore by Irish schoolchildren: strategies and outcomes

ABSTRACT

The Schools’ Scheme of 1937/8, initiated by the Irish Folklore Commission, was an almost unprecedented experiment. Not only did it contribute to one of the biggest collections of folklore in Europe, but it also arguably boosted the cultural development of children and created a catalyst for the intergenerational transmission of tales. Children from 26 counties collected folk materials on 55 topics indicated in the questionnaires Irish Folklore and Tradition and Béaloideas Éireann (1937). This paper provides a short review of strategies employed by children in their attempts to collect unstructured cultural texts through probable self-collection. It shows how the two questionnaires had an overwhelming influence on the resultant texts stored in the National Folklore Collection of Ireland at University College Dublin. The author employs a philological approach to folklore texts. Their form is analysed along with the contexts of creation (both immediate and wider ones).

KEYWORDS:

• Collection of folklore
• text creation
• transmission of culture
• children

The collection of folklore is an arduous process requiring a lot of time from both the interviewee and the collector. A standard way of conducting this type of work usually presumes that each role falls to a different individual, with one supplying the knowledge (the active tradition bearer in Von Sydow’s terminology),¹ while the other elicits the material from its bearer, giving it material existence. Nowadays it is usual to create an audio-visual recording, although in the past the artefact emerged as an often hand-written document. Though self-collection exists, that is to say, that the bearer creates their own record, by writing, or otherwise documenting their knowledge, this approach is by no means as widespread in the archival sources as collection by professional folklore fieldworkers. The latter consists of at least two people and their ideas on how a narrative should evolve, while the former allows one person to express themselves in a way that is more comfortable and/or natural for them.

In order to examine the ways in which schoolchildren who participated as ‘collectors’ in the 1937 scheme produced their transcripts, this paper presents a number of archival texts in their original orthography and dialectal variation. Moreover, linguistic evidence comparing dialectal and lexical forms enriches the context of text creation and can help interpret the extent to which the teacher played a role in how they appear on paper. The folklore texts will be constantly compared among themselves and to the texts provided by the Folklore Commission of Ireland in the form of questionnaires. In this way, we can see how the texts to some extent follow the question prompts from the questionnaire but how individuals frequently also used their initiative to create their own autonomous texts.

Texts in the Schools’ Collection of the National Folklore Collection of Ireland (NFCS hereafter) can be roughly divided into three categories: those collected from adults by children, those collected by teachers, either through self-collection or collection from other adults, and those collected by children through probable self-collection. This paper deals only with the third category. The collection from adults gave children not only language models of expression but also templates for the structure of texts. Because there was, arguably, no authority of adults/informants, children had an opportunity to express themselves more freely.

Although the folklore of children cannot be completely regarded as a blind spot in folklore studies, the main focus has always been on adult culture and life through time. Arguably, the majority of records could be attributed to adult tradition bearers (and this has a logical explanation both in the nature of folklore and in academic traditions). However, with the Schools’ Scheme, researchers have an opportunity to investigate several processes of living folk culture and the way intergenerational transmission of texts and traditions works. On the other hand, as Eliot Oring noted:

Folklore is often transmitted from one ‘generation’ to another, but that generational transmission only occasionally flows from parent to child. In fact, the transmission may not be from adult to child at all, but from slightly older child to slightly younger child. Indeed, adults may make little or no contribution to the stock of children’s folklore. Children’s lore is thus to a great extent independent of the teachings and wishes of parents and their surrogates.²

The Schools’ Scheme of the Irish Folklore Commission (IFC) was supposed to last from September to June 1937–38 and would comprise schools in 26 counties of The Irish Free State. Instead of classes dedicated to Composition exercises children from the age of eleven were collecting information from their relatives, neighbours, and friends in both Irish and English depending on the area. For the purpose of standardization and facilitation, Seán Ó Súilleabháin created two questionnaires Irish Folklore and Tradition in English and Béaloideas Éireann in Irish. While the IFC was able to employ fifteen full-time collectors over the period of 10 years (1935–1945), the Schools’ Scheme alone mobilized around 50,000 children all over Ireland (excluding six counties in Ulster), both in villages and cities, for the collection of cultural information.

Time allotted to composition exercises in English (for English monolingual areas), Irish only (for Irish-speaking areas) and in both English and Irish (for areas with residual Irish) was dedicated to Folklore composition and collection of stories from relatives and neighbours.³ Typical composition exercises and tutorials for them consisted mostly of simple sentences or texts focused on some grammatical topic. Some of them, such as Complete Course of Irish Composition by Denis M. Lynch⁴ comprised of exercises on so-called continuous prose composition, and in reality, simple translation could have provided children with some ideas on how texts should have unfolded and be structured. However, we may discount the idea of the crucial and comprehensive influence of these educational materials on children’s texts, since they did not supply children with ready-to-use narrative constructions but with rather trivial forms of natural language use. For example, they provided translation exercises with sentences like ‘we are not asleep, we are awake’ or vocabulary phrases such as chómh [sic] mór le ‘as big as’⁵ and initial formulas discussed further.

The scheme was aimed at schoolchildren from the age of eleven to fourteen. Even though the IFC was willing to instruct as many teachers as possible, it was an unachievable task to provide training for every school in the country, and most importantly, the Commission could never have instructed children. Therefore, responsibility for guiding the children fell to the teachers. In order to help them, two booklets had been published in 1937 - Irish Folklore and Tradition in English and Béaloideas Éireann in Irish. These consisted of 55 topics and provided sets of accompanying questions. Teachers would choose a particular topic each week, first reading the questions and then writing them on the blackboard. Briody states that the children would subsequently copy the questions.⁶ However, it is not entirely clear where they would have done this, because after a close examination of some exercise copybooks that children were supposed to use during collection and available at duchas.ie, these questions have not been found, only collected texts (along with language exercises in some cases). Nevertheless, it is clear that children at least had been instructed about the topic even though some of them might not have used specific question prompts. On the day when composition exercise took place the children would write down in their copybooks collected stories and traditions in the form of language composition. After that, the teacher would select children with the best writing skills to transfer materials from the copybooks into the standard notebook provided by the Department of Education. Teachers would also select stories to be transferred since the official position of the Department was to eliminate repetitions of material.⁷

All the efforts of the schoolchildren led to the creation of the second most prominent part of the National Folklore Collection of Ireland, the Schools’ Collection/Bailiúchán na Scol, comprised of official volumes and children’s copybooks if they were sent by the schools. The collection consists of roughly 740,000 pages (288,000 pages of children’s copybooks and 451,000 pages of official volumes).⁸

One of the difficulties presented by the NFCS is that an absence of any data about informants may not always mean that the text was created by a child, but rather that the child collector might have forgotten to supply the information about the source. So, in order to investigate the ability of children to produce texts by themselves, compositions closely related to children have been chosen for the analysis such as,

1. Cluichí ‘games’ and Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire ‘toys and pastime’) or being part of general knowledge in the form of unstructured (without a plot) texts

2. Mo Cheantar Féin ‘my own district’ and

3. Toibreacha Beannuithe ‘holy wells.’.

This selection is not ideal since the last two topics should have provided texts with some background knowledge originating with adults. However, the lack of any records about informants in the majority of selected texts and the fact that these topics could have presented background knowledge makes it possible to cautiously suppose that they were likely created by children themselves. Texts with information about adult informants were used in comparison in some cases.

Another challenge arising from the NFCS is that it consists both of official volumes with texts written by multiple people and the original copybooks of children containing both collected texts and regular language exercises in some cases. The copybooks were intended to be written by each child in the process of collection of material and they also contained simple language exercises and corrective work on mistakes. The official volumes have a rather complex origin. It seems likely that selected people (children and teachers) were chosen to transfer texts from the copybooks to the volumes and that, in many cases was someone other than the author of the text. This indicates that the path of transfer could have looked as follows:

1. A child collects a text in his/her copybook.

2. Next, a teacher selects texts to be transferred into the notebook.

3. Another child, considered to have clearer handwriting, is asked to transcribe these texts into a notebook while at school.

Moreover, some texts were collected or written by teachers themselves. In addition to other methodological variations, this complexity resulted in some irregularities in grammar and lexicon that manifest in the texts. Moreover, the teacher decided which texts were to be transcribed from the copybooks into the presentation volumes according to his or her own taste and ideas about which texts were worthy to be submitted to the Folklore Commission. As is to be expected, therefore, the copybooks consist of more homogeneous material with identical topics from children in the same class.

The fact that the texts in the NFCS were created in the school context as part of the Composition lessons predetermined several crucial features. On the one hand, arguably under the teachers’ guidance children were taught how to create texts by themselves (when they were not collecting from adults where the beginning, the middle, and the ending of a text were given to the child). This means the texts with the same topic created by pupils in the same class should resemble each other to some extent. On the other, while elaborate texts in the adult culture exist partly in the form of ready-to-use formulas, texts created by children substituted those for the ones they were given or that they found in printed sources. This, however, is partially true for the texts collected from adults as well.

Since neither teachers nor students had received training in the process of collecting folklore, the guidance provided by the questionnaire was supposed to help bridge this gap. However, rather than provide only an advisory guide the questionnaire came, de facto, to define the collection process. The structure of many texts follows that of the questions in the respective topic sections. With the topics relevant to this paper, this phenomenon becomes more pronounced. For example, in the Mo Cheantar Féin (‘my own area’) section, there is 1) a question about emigration: ar ghnáthach le mórán daoine dul go h-Aimeirice ó’n áit sin? ‘was it customary for a lot of people to go to America from that place?’ followed in the next paragraph by 2) a question about songs or old sayings: ar luadhadh ainm na h-áite riamh i n-amhrán nó i sean-rádh? Scríobh síos é ‘is the name of the place ever mentioned in a song or in an old saying? Write it down’ followed by 3) a question on the quality of land/soil: Cad é an sórt tailimh atá ann? ‘what kind of land is there’ followed by 4) a question about forests: an bhfuil cuid de fé choill? ‘is there a part [of the land] under forest’.⁹ When actual texts created by children from Inis Meáin, Co. Galway, for example, are analysed side by side (see Table 1), the stark similarity can be found (corresponding parts are marked from 1 to 4) with the English translation appearing directly below the original Irish in the same order:

Table 1. Influence of the questionnaire on the texts from Inis Meáin. Mo Cheantar Féin.

NFCS	NFCS	NFCS	NFCS
1) Ba ghnáthach le go leór daoine dul go Meirice fadó. 2) Do luadhad ainm na h-áite in amhrán a dubhairt Colm a’ Bhailís agus seo é. […] 3) Tá an talamh atá ann bocht agus carraigeacha i áiteacha de. 4) Níl aon chuid de’n talamh fá choillte^10 ‘1) It was customary for a lot of people to go to America long ago. 2) The name of the place is mentioned in a song sung by Colm ‘a Bhailís and here it is. […]. 3 The land is poor and rocky in places. 4) There is no part of the land under forest’	1) Ba gnáthach lé go leor daoine a dul go America as fadó. 2) Is minic a luadhadh ainm nah-aite i amhrán agus i sean-fhocal. Seo ceann amháin a rinne an file, (Colm a’Bhailís) […]. Ní aontuigheann na daoine leis sin mar tá na daoine áta in Inis Meadhon flaitheamhail pé ar bhith caoi ar rinne sé an t-amhrán. Tá amhrán eile freisin faoi a rinne an Máigistir lionain a bhí ag múineadh scoile ar an oiléan cúpla bliadhain ó shoin. 3) Is é an sórt talamh áta ann na talamh bocht carraigeach agus 4) níl aon cuid de faoi choillte^11 ‘1) It was customary for a lot of people to go to America long ago. 2) Often the name of the place is mentioned in a song and in a proverb/old saying. This is the song a poet made (Colm a’Bhailís). […] People do not agree with this because people who are on Inis Meáin are generous no matter the way he made the song. There is also another song about it that was made by Master Lionain who was teaching at school on the island a couple of years ago. 3) The kind of land here is poor and rocky and 4) there is no part of it under forest’	1) Theigheadh a lán daoine go h-Americe as fadó acht ní theigheann duine ar bith ann anois mar níl a chead aca. 2) Níl mórán amhráin ins an oileán go bhfuil trácht ar Inismeadhoin ionnta. Acht tá amhrán amháin ann a rinneadh i dtaobh an Oileáin ins an mbliain míle naoí gcéád triocha ag moladh an Oileáin. Tá amhrán beag ann agus deirtear go bé Colm a Bhailis a rinne é agus ag caineadh an Oileáin. Seó é é: […] 3) Tá an talamh atá ins an Oilean bocht carraigeach acht igcorr áit faoi na h-allthracha. An méid de atá ann tá sé go maith chun barraí a thabhairt. 4) Tá cuid mhaith de fé charraigeacha nach bhfuil tada ag fás ortha acht iad lom nocht^12 ‘1) Many people would go to America a long time ago but no one goes there now because they do not have permission. 2) There are not many songs in the island that mention Inis Meáin in them. But there is one song that was made about the Island in 1930 in praise of the Island. There is a little song and it is said that it was written by Colm a Bailis, condemning the Island. This is it: […]. 3) The land in the Island is poor and rocky but for odd place with cliffs. The amount of it is good for giving crops. 4) A good part of it is under rocks that have nothing growing on them but they are totally bare’	1) Ba ghnáthach le go leór daoine dul go h-Aimeirice ó’n áit. 2) Is minic a luadhadh ainm na h-áite i sean-fhocal agus in amhrán. Dubhairt an file (Colm a Bhailis) an t-amhrán seo faoi an oileán. […] Ní h-aontuigheann na daoine leis sin mar tá na daoine atá in Inismeadhon flaitheamhail pe ar bith caoí ar rinne sé an t-amhrán sin. Tá amhrán eile freisin a rinne Máigistir Lionan a bhí ag múineadh scoile annseo cupla bhliadain ó shóin. 3) Is é an sórt talamh atá ann ná talam garbh^13 ‘1) It was customary for a lot of people to go to America from this place’ 2) ‘Often the name of the place is mentioned in a proverb/old saying and in a song. ‘The poet (Colm a Bhailis) sang this song about the island. […]. People do not agree with this because people who are on Inis Meáin are generous no matter the way he made the song. There is also another song about it that was made by Master Lionain who was teaching at school on the island a couple of years ago. 3) The kind of land here is the rough land’

The texts were written by children on Inis Meáin, (one of the Aran Islands, Co. Galway) and are in their original copybooks (and no official volume with selected texts exists for the island), so authorship (or better, penmanship) should not be questioned. In their structure, they all closely follow the sequence of all the questions from the questionnaire. While the structure is the same, however, variability of wording is evident (except for the verse, of course, which was omitted for the economy of space but can be found below in the text from an adult). To some extent (columns 2 and 4 have more sentences in common, arguably meaning that children tried to copy each other with some minor additions). However, the booklet influenced the mode of expression. Ar ghnáthach le mórán daoine dul go h-Aimeirice ó’n áit sin? was answered almost identically in some cases by beginning with the same words used in the question: Ba ghnáthach le go leór daoine dul go Meirice fadó vs Ba gnáthach lé go leor daoine a dul go America as fadó vs Ba ghnáthach le go leór daoine dul go h-Aimeirice ó’n áit.

It is important to mention that dialectal variation in Irish is quite regionally distinctive to the point of possible identification of a general area of origin and/or upbringing of a speaker can be readily determined. The dialects differ on all levels, from phonetics to syntax. Moreover, it is possible to trace the influences of different dialects on a speaker (especially, a young one with a little habit of language use outside school). Texts in this paper all come from the dialectal zone of West Galway. Hence, they share a definite range of dialectal features not found in other dialects. Therefore, it becomes noticeable when dialectal features from other dialects or from standard usage enter a text homogenous in its use of the local dialect. For example, along with the standard for this dialect usage of the preposition faoi ‘under’, the usage of fé ‘under’ in the third column, which is a Munster Irish feature (from the South-West), can be easily attributed to the questionnaire (fé choill ‘under forest’). However, other features in the first column, such as fá ‘under, being an Ulster Irish feature (from the North-West). Accordingly, do luadhadh ‘was mentioned’, stands out as a Munster Irish feature (particle do before the past form is usually absent in the dialect of West Galway except for verbs starting with a vowel). The Ulster fá is puzzling as the Ulster dialect was not usually favoured outside the province, whereas Munster Irish enjoyed more prominence as the prestige dialect used by the State. Moreover, the variability of the name of the country with Meiriceá/Meiriocá being the standard for this dialect and Aimeirice being the form from the questionnaire along with previous examples illustrate the process of engagement of local dialect, school language/language presented in the school’s environment and, to a lesser extent, the third dialect.

The existence of an adult informant in the texts with no strict structure (meaning no plot) did not change the attitude of children towards the formation. In the text from Inis Meáin, the father of the collector is mentioned as the source, however, the same pattern 1–4 as in the four previous examples can be seen. Moreover, there is a similarity with columns 2 and 4 as well (the sentence about the disagreement of people with the song):

• 1) Bhí go leor daoine ag dul go Meiriceá as san am fadó.

• 2) Is minic a luadhadh ainm ha h-áite in amhrán agus i sean fhocal.

• Dubhairt an file Colm a’Bhailís uair in amhrán:

• Inis Meadhoin inis gan arán,

• Inis gann gortach,

• An lá a theigheann’s tú ann,

• Beir leat do chuid arán

• Nó beidh tú an lá sin do throsgadh.

• Ní aontuigheann na daoine leis sin mar tá na daoine go flaitheamhail san n-oileán.

• 3) Tá an talamh atá ann bocht agus carraigeach agus

• 4) níl aon chuid de faoi choillte¹⁴

Translation:

• 1) There were a lot of people going to America from it long ago.

• 2) Often the name of the place is mentioned in a song and in a proverb/old saying. The poet Colm a’Bhailís sang once in a song:

• Inis Meáin, Island without bread

• Scarce, hungry island

• The day you go here

• Take your bread with you

• Or you will be fasting that day

• The people do not agree with this because people are generous on the island.

• Ní aontuigheann na daoine leis sin mar tá na daoine go flaitheamhail san n-oileán.

• 3) The land here is poor and rocky and

• 4) no part of it is under forest

If the texts from Inis Meáin are compared to those from An Trá Bháin (a village on the southwest shore of Gorumna Island, on the mainland in Co. Galway), the reliance on the questionnaire for the creation of texts with no strict structure is evident as well (see Table 2). The table gives the questionnaire prompts in the first column, with the answers in the second. Translations follow the questions in column 1 and appear below the answers in column 2. For example, there is a cluster of questions about old people and the Irish language (1–4) followed by emigration and songs and then questions about the quality of land (5) in Mo Cheantar Féin section. Since the part about emigration and songs was missed in the text the relevant cluster of questions was removed as well:

Table 2. Influence of the questionnaire on the texts from an Trá Bháin. Mo Cheantar Féin.

Béaloideas Éireann (1937)

NFCS

1) An bhfuil a lán seandaoine ann os cionn 70 bliain?‘is there a lot of people above 70 years of age’ 2) An bhfuil Gaedhilg aca? ‘do they speak Irish’ 3) An féidir leo scéalta d’ innsint i nGaedhilg nó i mBéarla? ‘are they able to tell stories in Irish or in English’ 4) Scríobh síos a n-ainm agus a seoladh ‘write down their names and addresses’ […] 5) Cad é an sórt tailimh atá ann? ‘what kind of land is there’^15

1) Tá tríur san mbaile atá trí sgóir agus deich mblíadna agus 4) sí Máire Ní Donnchadha an duine is sine acú. Tá an tríur sin ag fágháil an pionsúin.^16 2) Tá cainnt ag gach duine acha ach 3) níl siad indan aon sgéal a innseacht i mbéarla. 5) Talamh dona atá san mbaile mar tá sé portánách carraigeach agus sléibhteánach^17 ‘1) There are three people in the town who are seventy years old and 4) Máire Ní Donnchadha is the oldest. Those three receive the pension. 2) Everyone has the language but 3) they are unable to tell any story in English. 5) The land is poor in the town because it is boggy, rocky, and mountainous’

The only part that disrupts the structure and also misses crucial information is the one about names and addresses. It provides only one name out of three and mentions no addresses (however, with the Irish household system and the fact that the location of the school was known finding these people using their names would not have been a hard task). All other sentences follow the order in which the questions were presented. Moreover, without the questionnaire, the structure of the text is meaningless: first, the child talks about old people and their ability to speak Irish and English (1–4), and then suddenly discusses the quality of the land (5).

It should not be forgotten that the texts were created as a composition exercise, thus, used some suggested or discussed ready-made structures in comparison to formulas in adult culture. This is confirmed by texts from different places. Beginning with more copy-like examples in Inis Meáin school (tá amhrán eile freisin faoi a rinne an Máigistir lionain a bhí ag múineadh scoile ar an oiléan cúpla bliadhain ó shoin¹⁸ vs tá amhrán eile freisin a rinne Máigistir Lionan a bhí ag múineadh scoile annseo cupla bhliadain ó shóin¹⁹) to formulaic expressions such as is é an chaoi ‘it is the way’ used in several hundreds of texts (the majority being in Co. Galway and Co. Mayo) to describe the course of actions. Moreover, there was a tendency to begin texts on the same topic similarly (or identically) especially when they were created in the same class. The similarity, however, usually ends with these initial formulas and the rest of the texts differ greatly in wording. In some cases, these initial formulas were direct answers to the questionnaire, in others there was no such connection. For example, for the question cad iad na cluichí a imrigheann tú? ‘what are the games you play’,²⁰ three children on Inis Meáin gave these answers:

Is iad na cluichí a imrighim ná sgreadadh, ag piocadh sméara agus cnoanna, ag déanamh púicín, ag déanamh bhfolach. Is é an chaoi a bhím ag imirt sgreadadh […]²¹; ‘these are the games I play sgreadadh/scream, picking berries and nuts, doing púicín/blind man’s buff, doing hiding. This is the way I am playing sgreadadh/scream’

Seo iad na cluichí a Imrighim. Imrighim shgreada ins an samhradh is é an caoí a Imrighim iad […]²²; ‘These are the games I play. I play sgreadadh/screaming the summer (,) it is the the way I play them’

Seo íad na cluichí a Imrighim: a sgreadha ins an samhradh. Is é an caoí a Imrighim iad […]²³ ‘These are the games I play: sgreadadh/scream in the summer. It is the way I play them’

However, the question on the number of holy wells, an mó tobar beannuithe sa pharróiste? ‘are there many holy wells in the parish’,²⁴ produced these answers in An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway (several kilometres away from Carna):

Tá tobar í Cill [sic] Ciarán sé an t-ainm áta [sic] air na tobar Ciarán²⁵ ‘there is a well in Cill Ciarán, Ciarán is its name’ and Tá tobar beannuighthe i gCill Ciáran agus sé an t-ainm áta [sic] ar na tobar Ciáran²⁶ ‘there is a holy well in Cill Ciarán, Ciarán is its name’.

Tá tobar beannuighe i n-Áil na bron ar a dtugar tobar Muire²⁷ ‘there is a holy well in Áil na Bron that was named Mary’s well’ and Tá tobar beannuighthe toir i Ail na bron ar a dtugar tobar Muire air²⁸ ‘there is a holy well in the east in Áil na Bron that was named Mary’s well’

This tendency should not be confused with the one that resulted in the Schools’ Scheme being a composition exercise when children created similar texts to each other in order not to fail a class. While the texts from Inis Meáin below have an identical beginning (in italics) they differ in the description afterwards (see Table 3). However, the structure of these descriptive passages is identical even to the point that all three extracts end with the word reilig ‘cemetery’ (followed by narratives about each holy well):

Table 3. The similarity of the texts on the same topic from three children from Inis Meáin.

NFCS	NFCS	NFCS
Tá trí toibreacha beannuighthe ins an oiléan, seo iad, iad. “Tobar Isleamáin, “Tobar Chinn Dheirge”, agus “Tobar Ceannanac”, Tá Tobar Isleamáin suidhthe thíos ar an mhuirbheach i aice le Claidhe Gainimhe, Tobar cinn Dheirge ar thaobh do laimhe cle do’n bothar in aice an t-séipéal shuas i mbuaile. Tobar Ceanannach thoir i mbuaile ag an Reilig^29 ‘There are three holy wells in the island, here they are. “Tobar Isleamáin, “Tobar Chinn Dheirge”, and “Tobar Ceannanach”, Tobar Isleamáin is located below on the beach near Claidhe Gainimhe/Sandy Walls, Tobar chinn Dherghe on the left hand side of the road near the church up in an enclosure. Tobar Ceannanach (is) in the east in an enclosure at the Cemetery’	Tá trí tobar beannuighthe ins an Oileán seo. Seo iad iad “Tobar Chinn Dheirge” atá i bpáirc ar ar taobh ó dheas de’n séipéal. “Tobar Isleamáin” atá i bpáirc le h-ais an mhuirbhthigh^30 taobh thíar de’n chaladh mór agus “Tobar Cheanannach” atá sa bpáirc atá ar an taobh ó dheas de’n reilig^31 ‘There are three holy wells in this Island. These are “Tobar Chinn Dheirge” which is in a field on the south side of the church. “Tobar Isleamáin” is in a field beside the sandy shore behind the large harbour and “Tobar Cheanannach” is in the field to the south of the cemetery’	Tá trí toibreacha beannuighthe ins an oileán seo agus seo íad íad: “Tobar Isleamáin” atá suidhte thíos ingar do’n Mhuirbheac igclaidhe Gainimhe. Tá tobar Chinn Dheirge suidhte ó dheas do’n bhothar nuair a bheifeá ag dul go dtí an slip. Tá tobar cheanannach suidhte imbuaile ó dheas do’n reilig^32 ‘There are three holy wells in the island, here they are: “Tobar Isleamáin” that is located down near the sandy shore in Claidhe Gainimhe/Sandy Walls. Tobar Chinn Dheirge is located southwards to the road you take if you go to the slip(way). Tobar Cheanannach is located in the town southwards to the cemetery’

One could assume that children without adult assistance just reused each other’s work since similarities in this particular case are great. However, it could have been due to the specifics of the topic – Holy Wells – that children were guided to reuse some common source since the comparison with a text mentioning an adult informant (see Table 4, on the left) gives the same result concerning similarities (in italics):

Table 4. The similarity of the texts on the same topic with an adult informant (left) and without one (right), Inis Meáin.

NFCS	NFCS
Deirtear gur tug [sic] fear cuid do’n uisge as tobar cinn deirge le cur ar na fataí le iad bruith agus na bruithfeadh siad do da mbead siad shíos ó soin^33 ‘it is said that a man took some water from Tobar Cinn Deirge to put on the potatoes to boil them and they may have boiled them if they had not disappeared’	Deirtear gur thug fear cuid den uisce abhaile leis le fataí a bhruth as tobar Chinn Dheirge. Chuir sé an t-uisce ar na fataí agus dá mbeadh siad thíos ó shoin ní bheadh siad bruighthe^34 ‘it is said that a man took some water home to boil potatoes from Tobar Cinn Deirge. He put water on the potatoes and if they were to disappear they would not be boiled’

It is doubtful that in these cases we deal with the actual intertextuality of oral texts since similarities are too great. It is unclear what source the children used because they differ in the order of description. However, this arguably could have been due to the fact that children simply did not want to have completely similar texts submitted to the teacher.

Another example of the influence the questionnaire had on the text formation is the difference in the personal forms (see Table 5). The absence of the first-person narrative can be expected in Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire topic due to its impersonal and descriptive nature, unlike Cluichí which consists of personal questions. It is correct in the majority of cases. Children used verbal forms with the words daoine ‘people’, cailiní ‘girls’, buachaillí ‘boys’ or páistí ‘children’ or third-person plural pronoun siad/third-person plural form of a prepositional pronoun (underlined below) in the third-person sentences. The feature presented a child as an impersonal observer and created an ethnographic-like style of description about someone alien to the author. In contrast, when the questions contained tú ‘you’ the children were guided to create personal narratives with the first-person pronoun mé ‘I’, first-person verbal or prepositional pronoun forms. However, while in Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire words like daoine or cailiní transformed into siad or third-person form of a prepositional pronoun (acú ‘they have’, for instance), mé or first-person verbal form (in bold) was substituted rather quickly for the first-person plural muid ‘we’ or a prepositional pronoun (in bold italics). Arguably, this was done as children felt themselves as a (playing) group:

Table 5. Personal forms in the texts from NFCS. Cluichí and Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire.

Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire (NFCS)

Cluichí (NFCS)

Is iomdha caitheamh aimsire a bhíos ag na daoine thart anseo le h-aghaidh laetheannta saoire an t-Samhraidh a chaitheamh. Seo cuid a bhíos ag na buachaillí. Gach Domhnach bailigheann siad i dteannta a chéile le h-aghaidh na gcluichí seo […]^35 ‘The people around here have many hobbies to spend the Summer holidays. Here’s what the boys do. Every Sunday they gather together for these games’ Is é an caitheadh aimsire is mo atá ag na cailliní […] Geibheann siad liathróid […]^36 ‘the girls like this hobby the most […] They get a ball […]’ Bíonn go leor cleasanna dá n-imirt ag buacaillí agus ag gasuir. Sé an cleas is mo a bhíonns acú […]^37 ‘boys and girls have many tricks to play. It is the trick they have and like the most […]’ Bíonn na paistí ag déanamh púicin san oidhche^38 ‘The children are playing púicin/blind man’s buff in the night’ Seo cluice atá ag na cailiní timcheall na h-áite seo […] Bíonn siad ag déanamh geataí árda^39 ‘This is a game the girls have around this place […] They make tall gates’

Sa mbaile imrigheann mé a lán cluichí cuir i gcás innsint sgéalta cois na teine gach tráthnóna Geimhridh agus muid go léir cruinnithe le chéile idir sean agus óg. Innsigheann muid sgéalta faoi na Fianna agus bíonn an-spraoidh againn.^40 ‘At home I play a lot of games, for example, telling stories near the fire every winter evening and we all assemble together, both young and old. We tell the stories about the Fianna and we are having a lot of fun’ Imrighim liom agus ma caillim ar aon cheann aca caithann mé iad a tabhairt do dhuine eile. Bíonn muid ag piocadh chrúibíní, sméara dubha agus áirní ins an bhfoghmhar. Bionn muid ag déanamh púicín isthigh sa teach.^41 ‘I play and if I lose any of them I have to give them to someone else. We are picking gooseberries, blackberries and gooseberries in the autumn. We are are playing púicín/blind man’s buff inside the house’ Bíonn go leór cluichi annseo ag na páistí óga. Nuair a bhíonn’s na páistí cruinnuighthe le chéile ins an oidhche timhceall na teinneadh […] Bíonn muid ag déanamh púicín freisin^42 ‘The young children have many games here. When the children are gathered together in the night around the fire […] We also play púicín/blind man’s buff’

From the nature of the collecting process arises another feature of the Schools’ Collection. Since the texts were created as a school activity instead of composition exercises, they might have been regarded in some cases as mandatory (and undesirable) school homework. This arguably resulted in the presence of extremely short texts in the Collection. While children might have collected from adults not willing or able to create long narratives, texts from possible self-collection can be short as well. This feature arguably shows that while the teachers participated greatly in the shaping of the Collection, in some cases they were not forcing children to create texts in a certain manner required by the course and the children were not trying to push themselves to their limits in creating bigger narratives for the school (arguably, sometimes they just could not do it). These examples (presented in full form) are from two places in Connemara, An Droim (a village on the Gorumna Island) and An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway respectively:

Tá dhá tobar beannuigh ins an mbaile. Tobar Caladh na Leice agus tobar Chaladh Bholstrom Téigheann na daoine go dtí an tobar sa Samhradh Caitheann siad bláthanna nó pighineacha le taobh an tobar. Tá ceann aca i Seanna comh mheas agus an Ceann eile i Poll Uí Mhuirinn⁴³

There are two holy wells in the town. Tobar Caladh na Leice and Tobar Chaladh Bholstrom. The people go to the well in the summer. They bring flowers or pennies to the side of the well. There is one equally respected in Seanna and another one in Poll Uí Mhuirinn

Tá carraig timcheall na h-áite seo agus tá tobar beannuighthe ar. Tobar Ebhernán an t-ainm atá air. Tobar an deas is ea é agus tá sé an chruinn. Tá leigheas feacla ann dhá ngothá timcheall air naoí nuaire agus pádreacha a radh ní tiochfadh dochaí fiacla ort comh minic is beadh sé ort cheana. Bir an tainm atá ar an gcarraig.⁴⁴

There is a rock around this place and there is a holy well on (it). Its name is Tobar Ebhernán. It is a very nice well and it is very round. There is a cure for teeth (.) if (you) pose/gesticulate around it nine times and say prayers you will not have toothaches as often as you used to. Bir is the name of the rock

It should be noted, however, that the extreme shortness of texts in the Collection, while not an unusual feature, cannot be regarded as its intrinsic characteristic. It seems children and teachers as well tried to create more presentable texts for submission in the majority of cases.

Nóra Nic an iomaire – an outstanding individual collector from the Schools’ Collection⁴⁵

While the comparison of previous examples paid no attention to the identity of any of their collectors, a detailed examination of the contribution and the identity of one individual in particular from a neighbouring area provides us with a valuable portrait. Nóra Nic an Iomaire, the daughter of Tomás Mac an Iomaire, himself a well-known storyteller, collected 39 out of 77 texts in the official volume from Carna, Co. Galway (NFCS, 0011). Firstly, the texts she collected from her father show an incredible level of devotion to the task on her part. Secondly, through the texts, Nóra demonstrates her language abilities as someone who recorded from an accomplished storyteller and who also created narratives of her own.

Two texts from Nóra, Cluichí ‘games’ and Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire ‘toys and pastime,’ will serve to illustrate my point. It should be noted that while Cluichí section in the questionnaire consists of questions, Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire instead of giving questions, provides descriptions of toys and activities. It is not clear what prompts, if any, the teachers used for the children to compose texts on the topic with no questions, but it could be speculated that they could have used a general question, such as, What kind of toys and/or pastimes do you have?, relying on the children’s ability to answer it. However, both topics proved to become interchangeable in some cases with the description of games in the text about pastime (as in children’s writing from a neighbouring village, NFCS, 0010: 066–068, Maíros, Co. Galway).

To be clear, in the official volume several people transferred Nóra’s almost forty texts, one of whom was the teacher, an anonymous nun from the Sisters of Mercy, the religious order that ran the primary school that Nóra attended. To some degree, this complicates the analysis and presents a difficulty in reaching any definitive conclusions about her writing style, since the original copybook is currently missing from the Archive. However, the selection of passages excerpted below show common traits and their features in general support tendencies found in other areas as well.

First of all, Nóra’s work demonstrates the same reliance on the questionnaire as is evident from schoolchildren on Inis Meáin or in An Trá Bháin (see Table 6). On one hand, some of the passages look like direct answers to questions. On the other, the texts follow the sequence in the booklet. In the example below, she starts her text by answering the first question in the Cluichí cluster (in the first column). Later in the text, she provides a list of games and the way to play them (since there is also a question about that):

Table 6. Influence of the questionnaire on the texts from Nóra Nic an Iomaire, Carna. Cluichí.

Béaloideas Éireann (1937)

NFCS

Cad iad na cluichí a imrigheann tú? Cuir síos liosta dhíobh. ‘What games do you play? Write down a list of them’^46 (An Roinn Oideachais, 1937b: 18)

Sa mbaile imrigheann mé a lan cluichí cuir i gcás innsint sgéalta cois na teine gach tráthnóna Geimhridh agus muid go léir cruinnithe le chéile idir sean agus óg. Innsigheann muid sgéalta faoi na Fianna agus bíonn an-spraoidh againn: - Cluiche eile a imrigheann muid is eadh ag dul i bhfolach ar a chéile agus bíonn muid ag imtheacht suas ins na seomraí agus amach ar na sráideanna^47 ‘At home I play a lot of games, for example, telling stories near the fire every winter evening and we all assemble together, both young and old. We tell the stories about the Fianna and having a lot of fun: - Other games we play is hiding from each other and we are going into the rooms and outside on the streets’

While this text follows the structure of the questionnaire, it does not look too artificial. When compared to the text about pastime from Maíros, Co. Galway (where a child or a teacher arguably became either confused between two topics, Cluichí and Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire, or merged the two deliberately, since spending time does logically include games), it becomes evident that unstructured texts could develop into a catalogue, rather than a sequential narrative. This could occur plausibly under the possible influence of suggestions to write down a list and describe how to play each one of the games. It is obvious that the way of constructing the text was affected by questions associated with a different topic. The child from Maíros almost from the beginning did not differentiate between games and other activities such as hunting the same way the author of the booklet did not but in the Cluichí section. There is a recurring part concerning games repeated 4 times: the name of the game and the formulaic expression seo é an chaoi a n-imrightear é ‘this is the way it is played’.⁴⁸

Second, Nóra reused to some extent linguistic material provided in the booklet (in the first column in Table 7) taking readily available constructs and inserting them in her narrative (in bold) in a more artistic way than it was done by children on Inis Meáin above, transforming them into more elaborate sentences:

Table 7. Influence of the questionnaire on the texts from Nóra Nic an Iomaire, Carna. Cluichí and Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire.

Béaloideas Éireann (1937)	NFCS
An bhfuil am fé leith do’n bhliain le h-aghaidh caitheamh aimsire áirithe: piocadh cnó agus sméara sa bhFoghmhar, breith ar éin i gcliabhán éan sa Gheimhreadh 7rl.?^49 ‘Is there a special time of the year for certain hobbies/pastimes: picking nuts and berries in the autumn, catching birds in a birdcage in the winter and so on?’	Sa Samhradh ag piocadh fraochóga agus is álainn iad le n-ithe. Agus sa bhfóghmhar ag piocadh cnó agus sméara agus cuireann muid a lán siúcra ortha agus bíonn siad an-deas agus milis. Sa nGeimhreadh ag breith ar éin i gcliabháin…^50 ‘In the summer picking bilberries and they are lovely to eat. And in the autumn picking of nuts and berries and we put a lot of sugar on them and they are nice and sweet. In the winter catching birds in a birdcage … ’
Is maith le garsúin agus le cailíní a bheith ag déanamh bréagán mar chaitheamh aimsire …^51 ‘Boys and girls like making toys as pastime/hobby’	Is maith le gach cailín agus gach buachaill a bheith ag déanamh bréagán mar chaitheamh aimsire mar bíonn an-spraoidh aca^52 ‘Every girl and every boy like making toys as a pastime/hobby because they have a lot of fun’
Deineann siad topaí d’adhmad nó do thurnapaí i n-áiteannaibh^53 ‘They make tops from wood or turnips in places’	Rud eile a dheineann na garsúin seadh topaí agus is as adhmad a dheintear iad agus cuirtear cos adhmaid ann agus bíonn sé go h-an deas ar fad^54 ‘Another thing the boys do is tops and they are made of wood and a wooden leg is put inside it and it is very nice all together’

Third, for her texts Nóra constructed general conclusions. However, it is not clear if it was taught at school, or if it was the influence of traditional storytelling. This feature, however, is not usual for the texts analysed in this paper. Is iomdha cluiche a imrigheann muid ag an scoil agus sa mbaile ‘many are the games we play at the school and at home’⁵⁵ she used for Cluichí since it was inquiring about school games as well, and sé sin an méid caitheamh aimsire a bhíonn ag na páistí mór-thimcheall mo cheanntair ‘that is the number of pastime activities the children have all around my area’⁵⁶ for Bréagáin agus Caitheamh Aimsire.

Regarding the first vs third person narratives discussed above, the text about the pastime from Nóra Nic an Iomare⁵⁷ is somewhat different. She used both impersonal and personal sentences; however, the latter appear unexpectedly and are concentrated at the beginning of the text and the rest of it is a third-person narrative.

Conclusions

This paper presented the analysis of texts created by children in a possible self-collection. It looked at the form of the texts from the perspective of the language used and from the position of influence of the contexts on this form (both immediate in the form of the questionnaires and the wider context of school education).

While the outcomes of the Schools’ Scheme were predetermined by the planning of the Folklore Commission and the issuing of two questionnaires, many variables played their role in shaping the resultant collection. First, the relationship between the questionnaires, teachers, and children emerges clearly as central to the production of texts. The design of the questionnaire influenced the process of collection and creation of texts on every level: it shaped the structure of naturally unstructured texts (for example, about games), provided children with ready-made formulas in some cases and introduced lexemes and grammatical forms from Munster, (the variety used by Seán Ó Súilleabháin, the author of the questionnaires). Second, the method of selection of texts from the children’s copybooks for transference to the official volumes influenced matters. The teachers decided which texts to transfer and hence, shaped the look of the local tradition (since not all of them returned the original copybooks to the Commission). Moreover, the teachers chose pupils to transfer those texts from the copybooks into the volumes, influencing the texts even more. Third, is the fact that children’s folklore was reduced to a restricted number of topics and the instructions were clear from the beginning that pupils should approach other people and ask them to provide them with material. Children were not encouraged to produce structured texts with a plot. This in turn resulted in some texts looking like ethnographic lists of activities. Fourth, the fact that the collection was a composition exercise at school, generated similar (sometimes almost identical) texts on the same topic while also producing really short ones. However, this process also showed the reliance of children on formulas to construct their texts not unlike their adult counterparts.

The Scheme arguably boosted the cultural development and formation of an entire generation of Irish schoolchildren and helped actualize those texts that could have otherwise remained neglected in different areas. Throughout the school year of 1937–38, children went through intensive cultural training which, again arguably, created a massive pool of passive and even potentially active bearers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Von Sydow. C. Selected Papers on Folklore (Copenhagen: Roskilde and Bagger, 1948).

2. Oring, E. Folk Groups and Folklore Genres. A Reader (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1989), p. 169.

3. Briody, M. The Irish Folklore Commission 1935–1970: History, Ideology, Methodology (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society/SKS, 2008), pp. 263–265.

4. Lynch, D.M. Complete Course of Irish Composition: with Full Vocabularies and a Treatise on Prosody. Irish manuals. (Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son, 1910).

5. Ibid., p. 6

6. Briody, M. The Irish Folklore Commission 1935–1970: History, Ideology, Methodology (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society/SKS, 2008), pp. 263–265.

7. Ibid.

8. Duchas.ie, the project to digitize the National Folklore Collection. https://www.duchas.ie/en/info/cbe [accessed 19 August 2023].

9. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann (Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937), pp. 19–20.

10. NFCS, 0002C: 02_004-02_005, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

11. NFCS, 0002C: 03_005, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

12. The sentence is the answer without the actual word for forest. NFCS, 0002C: 06_004-06_005, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

13. NFCS, 0002C: 07_004-07_005, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

14. NFCS, 0002C: 01_005, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

15. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann, pp. 19–20. Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937.

16. The answers are in a slightly different order.

17. NFCS, 0070: 376, An Trá Bháin, Co. Galway.

18. NFCS, 0002C: 03_005, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

19. NFCS, 0002C: 07_005, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

20. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann, p. 18. Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937.

21. NFCS, 0002C: 01_013, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

22. NFCS, 0002C: 03_015, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

23. NFCS, 0002C: 09_013, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

24. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann, p. 20. Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937.

25. (NFCS, 0011: 133, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway).

26. NFCS, 0011: 130, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway.

27. (NFCS, 0011: 134, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway).

28. NFCS, 0011: 137, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway.

29. NFCS, 0002C: 03_012, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

30. Probably, misspelling of muirbheach (gs. muirbhigh) – a level stretch of sandy land along sea-shore.

31. NFCS, 0002C: 05_006, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

32. NFCS, 0002C: 06_001, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

33. NFCS, 0002C: 03_013, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

34. NFCS, 0002C: 01_012, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

35. NFCS, 0010: 066, Maíros, Co. Galway.

36. NFCS, 0011: 285, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway.

37. NFCS, 0011: 286, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway.

38. NFCS, 0011: 287, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway.

39. NFCS, 0011: 287, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway.

40. NFCS, 0011: 437, Carna, Co. Galway.

41. NFCS, 0002C: 03_015, Inis Meáin, Co. Galway.

42. NFCS, 0070: 368, An Trá Bháin, Co. Galway.

43. NFCS, 0071: 106, An Droim, Co. Galway.

44. NFCS, 0011: 138, An Aird Mhóir, Co. Galway.

45. The Mac An Iomaire or Mac Con Iomaire family of Coillín, Carna, had a reputation as renowned storytellers. Tomás and his brother Pádraic were especially sought after by folklore collectors such as Seán Mac Giollarnáth, who published some of Tomás’ stories in the collection Loinnir Mac Leabhair agus Sgéalta Gaisgídh Eile, Dublin, 1936. See also uí Ógáin, R. Going to the Well for Water: The Séamus Ennis Field Diary 1942–46, (Cork, Cork University Press, 2009).

46. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann (Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937), p. 18.

47. NFCS, 0011: 437, Carna, Co. Galway.

48. NFCS, 0010: 066–068, Maíros, Co. Galway.

49. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann (Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937), p. 18.

50. NFCS, 0011: 437, Carna, Co. Galway.

51. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann (Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937), p. 14.

52. NFCS, 0011: 418, Carna, Co. Galway.

53. An Roinn Oideachais. Béaloideas Éireann (Dublin: Dept. of Education, 1937), p. 15.

54. NFCS, 0011: 418, Carna, Co. Galway.

55. NFCS, 0011: 438, Carna, Co. Galway.

56. NFCS, 0011: 419, Carna, Co. Galway.

57. NFCS, 0011: 418, Carna, Co. Galway.