Kelli - Finds

Recipe for Potato Farl

2 lb/ 1 kg/ 2 cups mashed potatoes

4 oz/ 125 g/ 1 cup plain flour

2 tbsp butter

salt

Melt the butter and mix into the potatoes with the salt. Work in the flour quickly but thoroughly and knead lightly. Divide in two and roll out each half on a floured board to form a circle about the size of a large dinner plate. Cut in quarters (farls) and cook for about 3 minutes on each side in a heavy frying pan in a little bacon fat.

----

Song about a place in Ireland:

"Limerick is Beautiful"
Source: Irish Street Ballads by Colm O'Lochlainn

Oh, then, Limerick is beautiful as ev'rybody knows,
The River Shannon full of fish beside that city flows.
'Tis not the river nor the fish that preys upon my mind
Nor with the town of Limerick have I any fault to find.

Oh, the girl I love is beautiful and fairer than the dawn,
She lives in Garryowen and she's called the Colleen Bawn.
But proudly as the river flows beside that fair citie,
As proudly and without a word that Colleen goes by me.

Oh then, if I was the Emperor of Russia to command
If I was Julius Caesar or Lord Lieutenant of the land.
I'd give my fleet, my golden store I'd give up my armie
The horse, the rifle and the foot and the Royal Artillerie.

I'd give my fleet of sailing ships that range the briny seas
I'd give the crown from off my head, my people on their knees
A beggar I would go to bed and proudly raise at dawn
If by my side, all for a bride, I found the Colleen Bawn.

---

County Sligo


County Galway


County Clare



---

Irish Art Depicting Traditional Topics


Walter Osborne - "St. Patrick's Close"


Trevor Fowler - "Children Dancing at Crossroads"


Darren Paul - "The Flute"

OK, here's the recipe for the soda bread...

Couple of people asked for it; here it is:

Don't think too hard about this. It's the kind of thing people actually will decide upon and bake when visitors first arrive. Best straight out of the oven; doesn't keep very well overnight. Lots of butter, maybe some marmelade, hot tea with milk and sugar. Note that all of these ingredients can be kept without artificial refrigeration; as long as the eggs and milk are kept cool (outside, in a cellar, or cooled in a stream), you don't need a fridge.

Preheat oven to 375. Grease a baking sheet. Warm 2 tbs butter until it is room temperature (e.g., soft, but not melted).

Sift together 3 cups unbleached white flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 2-4 tbs brown sugar. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with 2 knives or a potato-masher; you want the butter mixed in with the dry ingredients until the overall texture is coarse and crumbly.

In a separate bowl, whisk 1 egg and 1 cup buttermilk (or whole milk, or half-yogurt-half-milk). Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients, and stir with a fork only until mixed. Do not over-stir.

Dust a cutting board or clean counter with flour (so the dough won't stick). Turn the dough out onto the surface and dust your hands with flour (so the dough won't stick to them).

Now knead the dough (e.g., use the heel of one hand to press-and-stretch the dough into a flattened oblong, fold over and turn 90 degrees, and repeat). Do not knead any longer than you have to in order for the dough to stick together. It will be crumbly and flakey--that's OK, as long as it's mostly all sticking together. Shape the dough into a ball about 9" across.

Place on the center of the baking sheet. It's traditional to cut a cross into the top of the loaf, both as a religious symbol and also because this helps prevent the loaf cracking.

Bake 45 minutes and serve hot.

Variations: you can never go wrong adding a little bit more butter, a little more sweetener (adding about 1 cup of currants is a nice variant), or a little more milk. But the dough should be dry, crumbly, and flakey.

"Travellers" in the modern world

"Council fails in duty to Travellers: court"

The Travellers, as we've said in class, are a historically-marginalized social group (whose ethnicity is disputed) who have lived as itinerants on the roads of Ireland, Scotland, and England at least since the 16th century (some have suggested that they are the descendents of people made homeless during the Tudor Invasions of that period). Even up to the 20th century, these people were marginalized, treated with great suspician by the "settled" population, often denied education or social services, and so on. As is commonly the case, this was because settled people saw the Travellers as a threat, potential thieves, dishonest, dirty, etc. At the same time, Travellers have been a very important source of retention for folklore: songs, stories, folk cures, folk crafts, etc. The short film clip we saw of the pipers playing at a house ceili was of a group of Scottish Travellers.

More recently, the Irish government has attempted to address the Travellers' way of life with a bit more understanding, and to set up social services that might permit them to continue that way of life insofar as it is possible. Sometimes they have been "settled" in housing estates (the film Into the West begins in such a Travellers' housing estate); sometimes they have been accommodated in "serviced halting sites"--essentially government-owned campgrounds, at which Travellers would have preferred status and could stay in their caravans, while also having access to medical services, mail, government offices, and so forth.

The link points toward an article on the legal case of two Traveller families who have been unaccommodated by Limerick's social services agencies; evidently the campgrounds were full or not otherwise available. Interesting example of very old "folklore" lifestyles trying to cope with the modern, post-Industrial world.

Research info

For anyone that might care, I have a couple of books about Ireland that cover the country's history as well as containing beautiful pictures of the countryside. I also loaned Michelle a couple of books about Irish fairytales and Celtic myth/lore which I'm willing to be she might share. :)

Just FYI

Hey guys, I just wanted to let those of you who may care know that I got a book in from Interlibrary Loan called "Music and the Celtic Otherworld" by Karen Ralls-MacLeod. I'm finding a lot of good information in it on supernatural things. Those of you who have research topics relating to that are welcome to borrow it, look through it, and make copies if you need to. It's due back on April 15, so find me before then. :)