BSW4 - 7. The Irish storyteller
Nov 05, 2021, 10:53 AM
Speaker: Sean McMahon
From the Bluestack Way - Part 4 playlist.
Local writer Seumas MacManus collected and told of the gentle people in his book, 'Donegal Fairy Stories'. Writing on Old Lammas Day from Donegal town in 1900, his preface starts:- 'tales as old as the curlew's call are today listened to around the hearths of Donegal with the same keen and credulous eagerness with which they were hearkened to hundreds of years ago. Of a people whose only wealth is mental and spiritual, the thousand such tales are not the least significant heritage...
...the professional shanachy (sic) recites them to a charmed audience in the wake house, in the potato field, on the green hillside on summer Sundays, and at the crossroads in blissful autumn gloamings, while the green marge rests his hearers' aching limbs...he would wish that this world might for a few hours, give him their credence on trust, consent to forget temporarily that life is hard and joyless, be foolish, simple children once more, and bring to the entertainment the fresh and fun-loving hearts they possessed ere the world's wisdom came to them. And if they return to the world's wise ways with a lurking delight in their hearts, the shanachy will again feel rejoiced and proud for the triumph of our grand tales.'
From the Bluestack Way - Part 4 playlist.
Local writer Seumas MacManus collected and told of the gentle people in his book, 'Donegal Fairy Stories'. Writing on Old Lammas Day from Donegal town in 1900, his preface starts:- 'tales as old as the curlew's call are today listened to around the hearths of Donegal with the same keen and credulous eagerness with which they were hearkened to hundreds of years ago. Of a people whose only wealth is mental and spiritual, the thousand such tales are not the least significant heritage...
...the professional shanachy (sic) recites them to a charmed audience in the wake house, in the potato field, on the green hillside on summer Sundays, and at the crossroads in blissful autumn gloamings, while the green marge rests his hearers' aching limbs...he would wish that this world might for a few hours, give him their credence on trust, consent to forget temporarily that life is hard and joyless, be foolish, simple children once more, and bring to the entertainment the fresh and fun-loving hearts they possessed ere the world's wisdom came to them. And if they return to the world's wise ways with a lurking delight in their hearts, the shanachy will again feel rejoiced and proud for the triumph of our grand tales.'