The 1999 edition of Bealoideas (The Journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society) has just come to hand here, and is appropriately dedicated to the great Irishmen whose centenary was celebrated on May 26th one year ago. For this man, Seamus Delargy or James Hamilton Delargy, in the words of Ken Whitaker "had the vision, the training, the warm humanity, the unflagging zeal and the organisational capacity to collect and safeguard the dying heritage of Ireland's oral tradition before it was too late". Nor was he a reclusive scholar of the library and study, but a warm man who liked to be out in the country, talking to people as he went, maybe with a fishing rod in the back of the car, sharing a glass here and there, watchful for a hatch of fly on the river, but all the time with the great task on his mind of rescuing something precious for the people of Ireland - and succeeding.
For to him, and the faithful and dedicated men and women he gathered around him in the Irish Folklore Commission now evolved into the Department of Folklore at UCD, we owe the safeguarding of much of our past. As Ken Whitaker added: "By very few in our history - apart perhaps from the scribes and illuminators of our greatest manuscripts, and that other great Northern, Bunting - has as great a cultural service been rendered." To which he adds: "I stand by that!"
Delargy was a convivial and generous man, and at his home in Kenilworth Square, Dublin, you might meet scholars from Finland, Iceland and various countries, for his net was cast far and wide. He was drawn to the folklore of other countries as a scientific study in its own right. He learned German and Swedish and Icelandic. He gathered around him a group of dedicated collaborators: Maire Mac Neill, Sean O Suilleabhain, Caoimhin O Danachair. Delargy's successor Bo Almqvist writes of his zeal and wide-ranging interest in the folklore of other peoples. As of Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides and the Scottish mainland. Also of his great wisdom in attaching folk music specialists to his organisation.
He paints a picture of Delargy, from Cushendall, County Antrim, so well integrating into Kerry, whose Irish he spoke perfectly. "With a joke and a chuckle he would provide one with an Agatha Christie mystery, another with Woodbine cigarettes; and the roguish way in which to blind Peig Sayers in the Dingle hospital he administered whiskey - a bottle which she immediately hid under the blanket." Much more about Delargy and an interesting sideline of history, an article on The Society of Irish Tradition 1917-1919. Ever heard of it? E. M. Stephens (Ned Stephens) was the originator. The article is by Shane Stephens. A splendid issue of the publication. Editor of Bealoideas is Seamus O Cathain.