Author Description
Tomas O'crohan Was Born On The Great Blasket Island In 1865 And Died There In 1937, A Great Master Of His Native Irish. He Shared To The Full The Perilous Life Of A Primitive Community, Yet Possessed A Shrewd And Humorous Detachment That Enabled Him To Observe And Describe The World. His Book Is A Valuable Description Of A New Vanished Way Of Life; His Sole Purpose In Writing It Was In His Own Words, 'to Set Down The Character Of The People About Me So That Some Record Of Us Might Live After Us, For The Like Of Us Will Never Be Again'. The Blasket Islands Are Three Miles Off Irelands Dingle Peninsula. Until Their Evacuation Just After The Second World War, The Lives Of The 150 Or So Blasket Islanders Had Remained Unchanged For Centuries. A Rich Oral Tradition Of Story-telling, Poetry, And Folktales Kept Alive The Legends And History Of The Islands, And Has Made Their Literature Famous Throughout The World. The 7 Blasket Island Books Published By Oup Contain Memoirs And Reminiscences From Within This Literary Tradition, Evoking A Way Of Life Which Has Now Vanished.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
The core question investigated is how the vanishing culture and daily existence of the Great Blasket Island community can be preserved through the written word. Tomás O'Crohan, a native of the Great Blasket Island, provides a firsthand account of life on the Dingle Peninsula's periphery. With the assistance of translator Robin Flower, O'Crohan documents the social structures, oral traditions, and physical hardships of a community that remained largely unchanged for centuries until its eventual evacuation. The text serves as both a personal memoir and an ethnographic record of a society on the brink of disappearance.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Detailed accounts of the daily labor, fishing, and survival strategies of the Blasket Islanders.
- Transcriptions of the local oral tradition, including folktales, poetry, and historical legends.
- Observations on the social hierarchy and interpersonal dynamics of a small, isolated community.
Scope Limits
- The narrative is confined to the specific cultural and geographical context of the Great Blasket Island.
- It does not provide a comprehensive history of Ireland, focusing strictly on the islanders' perspective.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and literary critics frequently cite this work as a foundational text for understanding the Irish oral tradition and the specific cultural history of the Blasket Islands. Readers often note the stark, unvarnished quality of the prose, which captures the resilience and humor of a community facing the end of its traditional way of life.
Page Count:
276
Publication Date:
1977-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0191592420
ISBN-13:
9780191592423
History
Memoir
Biography
Folklore
Irish literature