Packy Jim: Folklore and Worldview on the Irish Border
by Ray Cashman
University of Wisconsin Press, 2017 Paper: 978-0-299-30894-0 | Cloth: 978-0-299-30890-2 | eISBN: 978-0-299-30893-3 Library of Congress Classification DA990.D6C37 2016 Dewey Decimal Classification 941.693
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Growing up on a secluded smuggling route along the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic, Packy Jim McGrath regularly heard the news, songs, and stories of men and women who stopped to pass the time until cover of darkness. In his early years, he says, he was all ears—but now it is his turn to talk.
Ray Cashman, who has been interviewing McGrath for more than fifteen years, demonstrates how Packy Jim embellishes daily conversation with stories of ghosts and fairies, heroic outlaws and hateful landlords. Such folklore is a boundless resource that he uses to come to grips with the past and present, this world and the next. His stories reveal an intricate worldview that is both idiosyncratic and shared—a testament to individual intelligence and talent, and a window into Irish vernacular culture.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Ray Cashman is an associate professor of folklore at Indiana University. He is the author of Storytelling on the Northern Irish Border, which won both the Chicago Folklore Prize of the American Folklore Society and the Donald Murphy Prize of the American Conference for Irish Studies.
REVIEWS
"Skillfully presents and analyzes stories naturally emerging from conversation and expressing a worldview that is both communal and formed by unique life experience. ... Highly recommended." —Choice
"Draws on interviews with Packy Jim McGrath, a Donegal storyteller who grew up on a smuggling route on the border of the Republic and Northern Ireland." —Chronicle of Higher Education
"Octogenarian bachelor Packy Jim emerges here as both typical and singular, a barometer of continuity and change. McGrath's resilience, dignity, and strong sense of self manifest clearly in his stories, which locate him both in the technological consumerist future and in the primordial self-sufficient past. Ray Cashman's sharp and sympathetic observation delivers a classic ethnography that stakes a major claim for folkloristic studies as cutting-edge humanities research." —Lillis Laoire, National University of Ireland–Galway
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface: Packy Jim Is Your Man
A Note on Language
1 Using Tradition, Constructing a Self
2 Person and Place, Life and Times
3 Authority and Rules
4 Power and Politics
5 Place, History, and Morality
6 Place, the Supernatural, and Cosmology
7 Belief and Skepticism
8 Community in a World of Limited Good
9 Worldview
Afterword: Real Folklore
Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: Transcription Style
Appendix 2: Notes on Recitations, Songs, and Traditional Stories
Notes
References
International Motif Index
Migratory Legend Type Index
Subject Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Packy Jim: Folklore and Worldview on the Irish Border
by Ray Cashman
University of Wisconsin Press, 2017 Paper: 978-0-299-30894-0 Cloth: 978-0-299-30890-2 eISBN: 978-0-299-30893-3
Growing up on a secluded smuggling route along the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic, Packy Jim McGrath regularly heard the news, songs, and stories of men and women who stopped to pass the time until cover of darkness. In his early years, he says, he was all ears—but now it is his turn to talk.
Ray Cashman, who has been interviewing McGrath for more than fifteen years, demonstrates how Packy Jim embellishes daily conversation with stories of ghosts and fairies, heroic outlaws and hateful landlords. Such folklore is a boundless resource that he uses to come to grips with the past and present, this world and the next. His stories reveal an intricate worldview that is both idiosyncratic and shared—a testament to individual intelligence and talent, and a window into Irish vernacular culture.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Ray Cashman is an associate professor of folklore at Indiana University. He is the author of Storytelling on the Northern Irish Border, which won both the Chicago Folklore Prize of the American Folklore Society and the Donald Murphy Prize of the American Conference for Irish Studies.
REVIEWS
"Skillfully presents and analyzes stories naturally emerging from conversation and expressing a worldview that is both communal and formed by unique life experience. ... Highly recommended." —Choice
"Draws on interviews with Packy Jim McGrath, a Donegal storyteller who grew up on a smuggling route on the border of the Republic and Northern Ireland." —Chronicle of Higher Education
"Octogenarian bachelor Packy Jim emerges here as both typical and singular, a barometer of continuity and change. McGrath's resilience, dignity, and strong sense of self manifest clearly in his stories, which locate him both in the technological consumerist future and in the primordial self-sufficient past. Ray Cashman's sharp and sympathetic observation delivers a classic ethnography that stakes a major claim for folkloristic studies as cutting-edge humanities research." —Lillis Laoire, National University of Ireland–Galway
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface: Packy Jim Is Your Man
A Note on Language
1 Using Tradition, Constructing a Self
2 Person and Place, Life and Times
3 Authority and Rules
4 Power and Politics
5 Place, History, and Morality
6 Place, the Supernatural, and Cosmology
7 Belief and Skepticism
8 Community in a World of Limited Good
9 Worldview
Afterword: Real Folklore
Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: Transcription Style
Appendix 2: Notes on Recitations, Songs, and Traditional Stories
Notes
References
International Motif Index
Migratory Legend Type Index
Subject Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE