Ever since I was in grade school, I have always enjoyed
telling stories. When I was in 8th grade, I won a prize in the Hibernian
essay contest.
Although many of my relatives have “the gift of gab”, the
champion story teller was my uncle Clem. Although he kept busy running his dairy
farm, he found plenty of time to put down his thoughts in dozens of notebooks,
and the collection in now in the possession of a few of my cousins.
I was wondering this morning exactly WHY the Irish seem to be such
good storytellers, and found the article below on line:
https://oldmooresalmanac.com/irish-storytelling-tradition-a-delicate-revival/
Although I will add a few comments at the end I decided to
simply copy the story nearly verbatim:
“Storytelling is a unique
part of Irish culture and heritage. Rich and vivid tales of Celtic
warriors and legendary battles, along with folk tales detailing the lives
of ordinary people, were passed on orally for centuries. Although the
seanchaí of old no longer entertain the towns and villages of Ireland, the
tradition of storytelling is undergoing something of a delicate revival in
Ireland.”
By Elaine Kavanagh
“A couple of years ago I
brought my young son to a story-telling event at our local library.
My curiosity about the content of the stories and their appeal to the
audience was well rewarded: storyteller Niall de Burca told
wonderfully tall tales and, in the spirit of the best
entertainers, caught the entire audience in his spell. There were plenty
of laughing children and smiling adults. It struck me that
perhaps the art of storytelling is not dead. Of course, I was aware
of Ireland’s rich storytelling tradition but assumed it had been
relegated to the history books.
Not so, according to
Nuala Hayes from Storytellers of Ireland, a voluntary organization
which has been promoting the practice and preservation of oral
storytelling since its inception in 2003. In fact, she says, the
tradition has been undergoing “a delicate and organic revival” for the
past twenty-five years.
Nuala compares the Irish
storytelling tradition as it currently stands to “an underground
stream that’s still alive and every now and then bubbles up to
the surface.” Interestingly, this revival is not just an Irish
phenomenon. Storytelling has been growing again internationally since
the end of the twentieth century. Nuala notes that while technology
has been a great aid to its growth, this in itself didn’t spark
the revival. It began before the advent of the internet.
The Revival
So, what were the sparks
of this revival? According to Nuala, different generations discover
storytelling as if for the first time, and she mentions the cultural
revival in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century as an example.
Nuala feels that storytelling fulfils a basic human need
to understand our lives through stories rather than economics or
facts. And, she says, perhaps at the birth of the age of technology,
people began to feel a need to gather in groups and explore stories
once again.
The rebirth of Irish
storytelling can be traced back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. One of
its pioneers was Liz Weir, an accomplished storyteller and Belfast
librarian from Co. Antrim. Influenced by British librarians who had been
organizing storytelling events for children during the 1970s, Liz set
up a storytelling group in the Linenhall Library in Belfast in 1985.
Despite
the sectarian issues in Northern Ireland at the time, the Belfast
Yarnspinners brought people from both sides of the community together
to tell stories and find a means of connection rather than division. With
Liz’s encouragement, many in the group began to share their stories and a
new community of storytellers was born.
It was the early 1990s
when Nuala first became interested in the storytelling tradition.
With a background in theatre, she was working along with other
artists at a series of workshops in France. A group of
French storytellers in the workshop next door came to her attention
because they seemed to be having great craic. Every now and then,
Nuala would hear one of them introduce an Irish story. This gave her pause
for thought – would there be an audience for storytelling in Dublin?
A New Irish Audience
Nuala and Ellen
Cranitch, a flautist and composer who now works for Lyric FM, decided
to find out. They booked Mother Redcaps, a Dublin pub known for
its traditional music. Four nights of music and stories were organized,
to take place in November 1991. Eamon Kelly, John Campbell, Len Graham,
Matt Cranitch, Máire Breatnach and Frank Harte were among the
many storytellers, singers and musicians who took part.
The event was a very
well received. Each night, a packed house chatted during the musical pieces but
listened with great interest to the stories. The event’s biggest
achievement, according to Nuala, was that it “shook up an
audience” for storytelling in Dublin. Scéalta Shamhna, as
it became known, grew over a ten-year period into a month-long celebration
of storytelling in venues throughout Dublin.
Gradually, yarnspinning
groups began to establish themselves around the country – north and
south of the border – with the help and encouragement of Liz Weir.
Nuala began to explore the old legends and started storytelling
herself. She especially liked the less well-known stories, the ones we
didn’t learn in school. Nuala thinks we’re very fortunate that the
Irish monks recorded a wealth of stories which might otherwise have
been lost. This means we have a rich store of stories to draw from. Not
only that, we also have a unique tradition because Irish stories tend
not to be moralistic, but rather to veer into the subversive with
fantastic leaps of imagination.
Storytelling Festivals
In 1994 the first Cape
Clear International Storytelling Festival was held, and it
has grown slowly and organically into one of the most renowned
storytelling festivals in the world. Each year at the end of August,
a program of international and homegrown storytellers gather on the
island off the coast of West Cork to entertain festival goers. There are
also workshops, story swapping sessions, storytelling boat trips and
folklore walks.
In fact, there are now a
wealth of storytelling festivals and events taking place around the
country. There’s a good chance you’ll find one close to your corner of
Ireland at some point during the year. There’s the Sneem Storytelling Festival in
Kerry, the Glens Storytelling
Festival in Antrim and the Slieve Bloom storytelling
festival in Tipperary to name a few. In Bray, Co Wicklow, the Yarn Storytelling
Festival takes place for a week each November. The
intention with the Bray festival is to get storytelling out of the arts center and
into community. With that in mind, it includes lots of storytelling and musical
events at various locations in the town, with all ages catered for.
There are also many
one-off events and storytelling groups. You can find details of the
festivals, events and local groups on the Storytellers of Ireland’s
website. You’ll also find a directory of storytellers available
for bookings, as well as interviews and articles related to storytelling.
Storytellers of Ireland is not just for storytellers, it is open to anyone
interested in the art of telling stories. If you’re interested in
storytelling they want to hear from you.
Tell Your Own Story
So it seems clear that
the art of storytelling is within our reach once more. I asked Nuala
how we can bring it into our lives. Her advice was simple – start
telling stories! She suggests that parents tell stories to their children,
or that community groups organize dedicated times to share stories
orally.
Alternatively, you
can look up the Storytellers of Ireland and
find a local group near you. You can even listen to storytellers
online – the marvelous Eamon Kelly, for instance can be found on YouTube. According
to Nuala listening doesn’t have quite the same magic as the real
thing. That said, it could be a good starting point.
Nuala’s passion for
storytelling is inspiring. I’m left with the impression that the Irish
storytelling tradition owes a lot both to herself and the community
of people who have kept this underground stream bubbling for the past
twenty-five years.
To finish, I ask Nuala
about her hopes for the future of storytelling in Ireland. To answer my
question, Nuala explains that many storytellers have collected a
wealth of documents, videos and other materials. In addition, the National
Folklore Collection at University College Dublin houses many
records relating to the oral tradition. Nuala would love to see the
establishment of an all-Ireland center where all these materials can
reside. Perhaps it could act as a place where the stories of our past
guide our future.”
To the story above, I’ll
add a few comments of my own>
The first is that I
actually HAVE kissed the blarney stone, which I did on a family trip to the Emerald
Isle in 1999.
A few years after that, I was promoted and transferred to Wisconsin. Since I was now a new manager, I thought it would be wise to join a Toastmasters club, and I continued to participate for nearly 25 years. I competed in LOT of speech contests, and won my share of trophies and awards, and the experience of participating has been beneficial in more ways than I can count.The next step in the
process happened when I sold a Nissan Armada to a young woman in Evanston in 2009. Although
she made a living as a parole officer, she also published stories online on her
blog:
https://houseonahillorg.blogspot.com/
She added a few stories
of mine to her blog, but quickly decided to start a blog of my own, which I did
in 2009.Since the first article was published, I have added nearly 700 more,
and I actually got a check from Google a few years back.
I’m too old to make a
return trip to Ireland, but I try to keep the tradition alive by putting down a
few thoughts whenever an idea pops into my head. I’ll send the latest story to
a few of my relatives, and I generally post them on Facebook as well.
If he were still alive,
I’m pretty sure that uncle Clem would approve.
