Patrick Kennedy (folklorist)

Kennedy was born in the early part of 1801[2] in Kilmyshal beyond the outskirts of Bunclody,[2] County Wexford, Ireland, in a financially well-off family of peasant stock.[8] The lived in the village of Kilmyshal until reached age six, and Mount Leinster, which loomed tall over his boyhood hometown served as a backdrop of his first book.[2][9]

The family moved (in 1807) to some district in Castleboro, Killegney civil parish, County Wexford; it is known they resided particularly at Coolbawn townland from 1810 to 1814. Then in 1814 they moved again three miles east to Courtnacuddy, Rossdroit civil parish.[10][11][lower-alpha 2] During this period, Patrick went away briefly in 1813 to attend school at Shanowle near Taghmon, staying with his mother's relatives, but this lasted only one or two terms. Subsequently, he was schooled closer to home at Cloughbawn, in Clonroche townland. The school was run by the famous "Mr. O'Neill", and at first Patrick's classes were held at the Cloughbawn Parish Church, until a schoolhouse was erected by the landlord, Robert Carew.[13] Patrick lodged at the home was Morgan Dunne, his room and board paid for by tutoring. The Cloughbawn school had high standards and Patrick would later commend it in writing. His studies there lasted until 1818 or late 1819.[14]

In 1819 when he filled a temporary teacher's post at Tombrick School vacated by a friend (O'Brien) who was going to attend the Teachers Training School at Kildare Place.[15] In 1820 or 21, Kennedy himself went to Dublin to enroll in the teacher-training program at Kildare Place (officially called the "Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor of Ireland"), and was so highly evaluated that after completing the program c. 1821, he was not posted to the school of his landlord as might have been expected, but gained employ at the Society itself as an instructor, or as Junior Assistant to the Superintendent, c. 1822.[8][16] The Society, which the British Government as the apparatus overseeing the education of the whole of Ireland, was abolished in 1831, due to pressure from the men of the Catholic Emancipation movement.[17]

After his place of employment vanished, Patrick Kennedy set himself up as a "Drawing Master", and as of 1836 his name is found registered with the Dublin Directory as Professor of Drawing.[17] He married Maria Kelly on 24 October 1832.[17] The Commission of Education which replaced the Society emphasized agricultural learning, and when the Glasnevin facility with a farm for practical training and a residence for the trainee teachers were completed in 1838, Kennedy was appointed Superintendent. But he was dismissed shortly after, having quarreled with the farm's manager.[17]

He abandoned the teaching profession at some time uncertain, and established a lending-library and bookseller shop on 8 Anglesea Street, Dublin, which he later moved to the Anglesea Street on the corner of Cope Street.[18][17] Edward Dowden remembered the proprietor "with round, bald head, grizzled beard, and a smile and twinkle over all his face".[19] Kennedy ran the shop for some thirty years.[17] Kennedy died 29 March 1873.[17]

Alfred Webb's A Compendium of Irish Biography (1878) writes that his home often played host to the "Hibernian Temperance Association",[20] though possibly this is a result of confusion with Dr. Patrick Kennedy, Bishop of Killaloe, associated with Father Mathew's temperance movement.

Kennedy's career in writing began by being published in such periodicals as the Wexford Independent and Duffy's Fireside Magazine. At first contributed articles and reviews, and later began to set down tales from his native Wexford County into writing.[17]

Patrick Kennedy was one of the pioneers in uncovering Irish folkloric material, with a lasting impact on William Butler Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement.[35] The tales were told in rusticated English of the Irish peasantry who had established roots in The Pale, the anglicized part of Ireland.[36] He is "widely credited with preserving Irish idioms in the turn of phrase, sentence structure, Irish words".[8]

Kennedy's folklore-collecting has been assessed as "unfailingly accurate" by James G. Delaney,[37] a folklore collector for the Irish Folklore Commission who has conducted field work largely in the Midlands, but began his career in 1954 collecting folklore in areas of Wexford where Kennedy grew up.[38] Kennedy was also assiduous about recording folklore for the sake of it being tradition deserving to be preserved, even in the cases of a particular ballad he did not have high opinion of,[24] or the custom of irreverently playing games and singing ballad, for which he privately held reservations.[34]

Bo Almqvist also compares Kennedy favorably to Thomas Crofton Croker as folktale collector, and although Kennedy did to add literary flair and contrived humour, or somewhat dwelled on stereotypes of the Irishman such as his love for alcohol, but did not take license and tamper with the tales in a major way compared with Croker.[39] Kennedy's tales from County Wexford, mostly recalled from memory as told in English during his youth, are valuable since they preserve the folklore of a region that became somewhat neglected from folklore-collection subsequently in the 19th century.[28]

Under pseudonym of Harry Whitney

• Legends of Mount Leinster (1855).[40]

As Patrick Kennedy

• Fictions of Our Forefathers (1859).[41]
• Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts (1867).[42]
• The Banks of the Boro a Chronicle of the County of Wexford (1867).[43]
• Evenings in the Duffrey (1869).[44]
• The Fireside Stories of Ireland (1870).[45]
• The Bardic Stories of Ireland (1871).[46]

Citations

Bibliography