From the British Museum to the Great Blasket: Robin Flower and the Western Island

2017/07/03 by Patricia Lysaght · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Irish and British Studies

paper · doi:10.1080/0015587x.2017.1336002

openalex publication_date 2017/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

This lecture examines Robin Flower’s engagement with the Irish language, with Irish literature, and especially with the oral traditions of the Great Blasket Island, Co. Kerry, Ireland, commencing in 1910 and continuing for more than three decades. He was taught modern Irish by the Blasket Islander, Tomás Ó Criomhthain, and, during his several visits to the Great Blasket, he collected folklore from many of the Islanders, including the noted storyteller Peig Sayers.

Cited by

• Patricia Lysaght [wikipedia]

Related

• From ‘Collect the Fragments …’ to ‘Memory of the World’—Collecting the Folklore of Ireland 1927–70: Aims, Achievement, Legacy
• An Artist on Inis Oírr and Inis Meáin: Simon Coleman’s Visit to the Aran Islands in 1959 on Behalf of the Irish Folklore Commission
• The Islander: A More Provocative Tomás O’Crohan
• Creating the past: the early Irish genealogical tradition
• “Sarsfield Is the Word”: The Heroic Afterlife of an Irish Jacobite