An Irish Charm among the Nineteenth-Century Folklore Collectings of J. J. Lyons

Abstract

Newspapers, along with other periodical forms of media, played an important role in the distribution of folklore collected in the nineteenth century. One such publication within the Irish and Irish American context that contributed to this periodical-based interest in disseminating folklore was the Brooklyn newspaper An Gaodhal, among the earliest newspapers produced predominantly in the Irish language. Included in its contributors was the Philadelphia-based Irish speaker J. J. Lyons, who published over a hundred songs, prayers, and other folk collectings that he acquired through talking to Irish informants in the United States. These efforts include a charm for the Evil Eye contributed to an 1890 issue of An Gaodhal. This and other instances of published folklore collecting are significant in that the format of nineteenth-century newspapers, with their emphasis on identifying informants to demonstrate authenticity and accuracy of the contribution, contributed to a growing ethnographic and professionalized approach to folklore that would subsequently dominate the field.