The islands of Cape Clear and Sherkin off the south-west coast will be the venue next weekend for a special event celebrating the work of the Irish Folklore Commission between 1937 and 1938 when the Schools Collection was gathered.
Launched in conjunction with the Department of Education, the collection involved primary-school students from each of the 26 counties asking their parents and relatives about folklore and what they remembered of the old ways. For the children taking part, the prize was they were given the weekly essay off. For the Folklore Commission, the result was a unique collection of pisheogs, stories, poems, placenames, songs, recipes, etc, as recorded by the children.
On Friday next at the Community Centre on Sherkin, Dr Rionach Ui hOgain of UCD's folklore department will give the first of two lectures on the Schools Collection and some of the people who took part in the project will be present.
There will be an exhibition of photographs from the collection as well as recordings from the time.
Afterwards, there will be a discussion followed by music and dance and a boat will bring islanders from nearby Hare Island, which also featured in the collection.
There will be a storytelling workshop for the children of each island as well, hosted by storyteller Pat Speight.
An Club, on Cape Clear, will host the event on Saturday night which has been organised by the Cork County Arts Office. Sean nos singer Sean Dineen will be among the guests on both evenings and he will be joined by island singers, dancers and other storytellers.