A great deal has been written about Irish folklore, about the purported continuity of folk tradition from ancient times into the modern era, and about the vitality of Irish culture in the face of oppression. This volume argues that scholars have overlooked the dynamic relationship between written and spoken word in Irish culture. The editors point out that “scholars of Irish folklore work more with written or recorded representations of oral material than with anything else, Irish-language scholars work with manuscripts, and English-language scholars with the printed word” (11). The essays they have compiled approach the interactions between print, manuscript, and oral traditions from various theoretical perspectives, but always with an eye to illuminating the complex and often reciprocal processes underlying these relationships. The book is specifically framed as an attempt to foster dialogue among scholars working with these issues, and though it is clearly located within the purview of Irish Studies, it has important implications for scholars in a range of related disciplines.

In seven articles the contributors explore various aspects of Irish written and oral texts, ranging from an early collection of folklore to the works of a nineteenth-century Ulster poet. Points of contact between the various communicative media are always at the fore, and in all cases the authors are careful to emphasize that oral and written texts are tools used strategically by their authors and audiences.

Lesa Ní Mhunghaile’s article, “The Intersection between Oral Tradition, Manuscript, and Print Cultures in Charlotte Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789),” aptly underscores the importance of these issues in the collection of Irish folk texts. Ní Mhunghaile situates Brooke’s collection within the broader context of European antiquarianism. According to Ní Mhunghaile, “The Reliques is a complex text that engages with many of the key contemporary European debates of the day” (15). She suggests that Brooke’s work not only collected important examples of oral tradition, but also entered into the Irish manuscript tradition when scribes copied the book (28). Finally, she argues that the Reliques “initiated the collecting, and ultimately preservation of folksongs from the Irish oral tradition” (31). Ní Mhunghaile’s article effectively demonstrates the potential for collections of folk material to interact with the traditions they claim to represent.

Some writers consider specific texts as windows into particular cultural contexts. In “Garbling and Jumbling: Printing from Dictation in Eighteenth-Century Limerick,” Andrew Carpenter examines the tradition of chapbooks in Ireland in the late eighteenth century. Chapbooks were small, cheap songbooks sold by wandering peddlers "wherever people gathered" (33). Carpenter gives an interesting account of the process of dictation whereby a “chapman” would dictate his song text to the compositor, who would set the type and print the songs as he heard them and without any editing: "Thus each surviving chapbook is a printed record of a moment of unique—and sometimes rather peculiar—oral transmission" (36).

Similarly, Marie-Louise Coolahan considers the testimonies of witnesses during the 1641 Depositions and argues that they reflect patterns of speech and “bilingual competencies of the period” (71). Linde Lunney uses the poetry of James Orr as ethnographic data that elucidate a period of drastic change in modes of communication (121). Discussing Orr’s careful representation of regional Irish pronunciations, she writes, “Linguistic awareness of this sort suggests a degree of sophistication which would not have been present in a community without external contacts” (134). These essays, with their “ethnographic” dimensions, are particularly compelling in their portrayal of oral-literary cultures in action, and provide valuable insights into literary practices in early modern Ireland.

Other articles focus on the relationship between specific texts and particular readers. Marc Caball shows the various strategic uses to which Keating’s Foras feasa ar Éirinn has been put by examining the critical annotations made to the text by three very different readers. According to Caball, Keating’s work has remained an important entry in the canon of Irish literature despite challenges to its historical validity, “[demonstrating its] sinuous intellectual utility and potential for interpretive flux” (68). John Moulden investigates the library of a nineteenth-century family in the north of Ireland to discover what impact popular texts had on their lives. Moulden suggests that the collection can be used to reconstruct the worldview of the family as well as their attitude toward reading and the contexts in which it is likely to have occurred (116-117).

Finally, Nicholas Williams discusses the history of Gaelic writing using English spelling. Williams argues that the “English character” was a formalized writing system, as opposed to a random method of approximating sounds (88; 97). He traces the development of the English character up to the career of Douglas Hyde, who rejected English spelling of Irish. Williams situates Hyde as a critical figure in the history of the Irish language, whose 1892 lecture, “On the Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland,” was followed by “an explosion of interest in the language among those who had never known it” (100).

The slender volume successfully illustrates the interplay of verbal media in Ireland prior to the twentieth century. It should be of interest to folklorists as well as to others who study culture and communication, for its emphasis on the mutability and strategic uses of texts in various forms. Each author thoroughly contextualizes the texts he or she examines, pointing to ways in which written culture influenced orality and vice versa. While folklore is only explicitly mentioned a handful of times, the scope of the articles and the nature of the material highlight the potential for collaboration between folklorists and scholars from other disciplines, even if such collaboration is not itself represented here.

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[Review length: 928 words • Review posted on June 16, 2011]