Trauma, Famine, and Social Decay: A Lecture by Ray Cashman at the Folklore of Ireland Society

At an event held in Dublin’s James Joyce Centre by the Folklore of Ireland Society, esteemed folklore scholar from the United States, Professor Ray Cashman delivered a lecture on the topic of Irish folklore and its reflection of Irish society. With a fixation upon the idea that folklore may reflect a societies interaction with cultural trauma or adversity, the Famine entered centre-stage as the point of discussion for the night, although not before the professor characterised the folk beliefs of rural villages to demonstrate their robust communal character.

The Butterwitch, a belief in a thieving neighbourhood witch who transforms into a hare to suck the milk from livestock in order to return home and turn it into butter, was discussed as being reflective of the distaste for thievery and dishonesty in rural Irish societies. Accusations of witchcraft would sometimes be levelled against villagers for their illicit trespassing on farmers land or the sight of hares returning to their homes.

Most interestingly however, is the custom of the luckspenny, by which those selling livestock or other goods would, after receiving payment from a customer, return a portion of the funds to them in order to maintain a positive relationship with them, and dissuade any feelings of financial extortion within the community. As such, it was common for villagers within a community to rack up debt to one another in such a manner that affirmed the mutual interconnected interests of the community and their reliance on one another.

To contextualise the importance of such tales and their reflective of Old Ireland’s homely belief system, Professor Cashman discussed the idea that folklore and other traditional customs are in essence a vernacular social contract created by a community, and deeply personalised to the local level.

Separated into two parts, the lecture at first discussed the aforementioned character of rural Irish communities, before reaching its primary point of discussion: the ramification of the Famine in the breakdown of Irish communities and its reflection via folklore studies. Professor Cashman paints a picture of a robust social setting, one which persists in parts of Ireland to this day among the elderly community, but it is unfortunately one which has been damaged by the worst aspects of Irish character, the most prominent being a parochial envy of ones neighbours

Speaking on the Famine and its social repercussions on Irish society, Professor Cashman discussed the phenomenon of the Hungry Grass, An Féar Gorta. An Féar Gorta, a patch of cursed crass, which during times of Famine seeks out food, such as crumbs deliberately left by passersby on the fields and country roads across the country lest the creature take physical form. Whether the phenomenon is a result of the faries or national guilt dervied from the survivors of the Famine, is disputed in folkloristic studies, though the phenomenon undoubtedly draws its origin from both sources, and may have been adapted following the societal trauma of the Famine.

Donagh McDonagh, the son of 1916 revolutionary Thomas McDonagh, on the centenary of the Famine in 1947, wrote a short poem, titled ‘The Hungry Grass’ which communicates the themes regarding this aspect of Irish folklore:

Crossing the shallow holdings high above sea

Where few birds nest, the luckless foot may pass

From the bright safety of experience

Into the terror of the hungry grass.

Here in a year when poison from the air

First withered in despair the growth of spring

Some skull-faced wretch whom nettle could not save

Crept on four bones to his last scattering;

Crept, and the shrivelled heart which drove his thought

Towards platters brought in hospitality

Burst as the wizened eyes measured the miles

Like dizzy walls forbidding him the city.

Little the earth reclaimed from that poor body;

But yet, remembering him, the place has grown

Bewitched, and the thin grass he nourishes

Racks with his famine, sucks marrow from the bone.

In discussion of the breakdown of Irish society following the Famine, Professor Cashman reflected on the social anxiety induced following its wake. Neighbours, formerly engaged in a strong reciprocal relationship, were pitted against one another competing for limited resources which they required to feed themselves and their families above all others, thereby inducing conscious anti-social behaviour within communities who in such a time of strife must stand apart to stay together.

In conclusion, much can be drawn from Professor Cashman’s lecture with respect to the importance of folklore in understanding social currents within Irish society and the extent to which the psychological profile of the Irish nation has been impacted by historical changes in centuries past.