- Éamon a Búrc
Éamon a Búrc (1866–1942) was a tailor and legendary Irish storyteller or "
seanchaí ".Born to an Irish-speaking family in
Carna, County Galway , Ireland, Éamon a Búrc, was brought by his parents toGraceville, Minnesota in 1880. Their passage was paid for byArchbishop John Ireland, who wished to fill up theMinnesota prairie withIrish-American farm families. After a severeblizzard struck onOctober 15 ,1880 , the condition of theConnemara refugees became an international scandal. The a Búrc family was evicted from their claim and resettled in aSaint Paul, Minnesota shantytown which was dubbed the Connemara Patch. Éamon and his father went to work for theGreat Northern Railroad ofJames J. Hill . After losing a leg in a work related accident, Éamon returned toIreland and went to work as atailor at his home in the village ofAill na Brón , near his native Carna.In the Fall of 1935, he was visited by
Séamus Ó Duilearga andLiam Mac Coisdeala , representatives of theIrish Folklore Commission . They recorded his repertoire of legends and folk poetry on a collection ofEdiphone cylinders. The recordings were later transcribed, filling more than 2,000 pages of manuscript.The Encyclopaedia of Ireland states: "He was perhaps the finest storyteller collected from in the twentieth century. The longest folk-tale ever recorded in Ireland - taking three nights to tell and amounting to more than 30,000 words - was collected from him."
ee also
*
Seanchaí ource
* "The Encyclopaedia of Ireland," 2003; ISBN 0 7171 300 2.
* Bridget Connelly, "Forgetting Ireland; Uncovering a Family's Secret History,"Borealis Books ,Minnesota Historical Society , 2003.
*Sean O'Sullivan , "Folktales of Ireland,"University of Chicago , 1966.
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