(I am still a bit behind on posting updates–this is from June 12-14)
Insights from University College Dublin
We took a bus to UCD and made a friend of a Canadian en route to the Folklore Library as the three of us wondered the campus lost.
Meeting with Dr. Moore
Even though he had a pretty busy day, Dr. Moore met with me for an hour before I went to the Folklore Library and about an hour afterwards. He was extremely helpful and very interested in my project. He recommends I focus my research on patients and their experiences with using folk cures. He sees the performance of the healing act itself and the role of the healer as periphery. More over, the secretive nature of my subject suggest that the bulk of my data will be coming from patient’s stories of healing (their illness narratives) and that I may have very little opportunity to observe a cure take place. Following his direction, I have altered my research site location avoiding the overly tourist locations in Western Ireland (possible). Dr. Moore assures me that knowledge and use of folk cures is incredibly common throughout Ireland, the only complication is getting people to talk about it. When people’s health is well, it seems people do not normally discuss charms and cures, which could prove problematic. I hope this doesn’t mean that I will only be able to interview people once. Our conversation provided me with great insight into folk cures which could never come for the words on a page alone.
Touring the Folklore Collection Library
UCD has an amazing folklore collection including transcriptions of folklore interviews dating back to the 1930s! http://www.ucd.ie/irishfolklore/en/ This amazing collection of Irish oral traditions, family life, and folk arts includes a quite a sizable amount of entries on folk cures and charms as well as herbal remedies. The staff was incredibly helpful and friendly. I plan to spend some time doing a bit of research there again when I return to Dublin before I leave to come back to the States.
Plan Going Forward from Here (Subject to Change as New Information come to Light)
- Find a New Research Site
- Who I am Interviewing
- Determine what my research questions and what interview questions to ask to address them.
- Conduct Ethnographic Analysis of the Community
Sydney Yeager 