‘She could sit and spin those stories all night!’: The Midwife Effie Currie

• 07/02/2023
• Online talk

South Uist panorama, Wikimedia Commons

‘She could sit and spin those stories all night!’: The Midwife Effie Currie (1867-1942), Her Hero Tales and Women Storytellers in Gaelic Tradition

A Folklore Society Online talk by Dr Tiber Falzett (University College Dublin)

Tuesday 7 February 2023, 18:00 GMT

This talk will focus on a collection of a dozen hero tales taken from the recitation of Effie Currie (Oighrig Ruadh, 1867-1942) of An Leth-Mheadhanach (South Boisdale), South Uist by the young Eriskay folklore collector Donald MacDonald in July of 1934 under the sponsorship of An Comunn Gàidhealach. Effie was described by MacDonald as having “a very tenacious memory better than any I have as yet encountered in any ‘seanachaidh’ in Eriskay or South Uist.” Both her documented repertoire, including an oral variant of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, and the observations of those who met and knew Effie, reveal her to be a remarkable verbal artist whose storytelling challenges the stereotypes concerning the types of narrative maintained and performed by women storytellers in Gaelic tradition. Special attention will be given to situate Effie’s tales and other’s memories of her within wider frameworks of performance, transmission and documentation of these narrative types and the integral role she and other women knowledge bearers played in the storytelling tradition of the Southern Outer Hebrides and beyond.

Dr Tiber Falzett is a folklorist, musician, and Assistant Professor in Folklore and Ethnology at the School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, University College, Dublin

Tickets £6.00 (£4.00 for Folklore Society members with Promo Code: log in to the Members Area to get the Promo Code): book at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/she-could-sit-and-spin-those-stories-all-night-the-midwife-effie-currie-tickets-513319671957

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