Traditional Medicinal Knowledge documented in the Schools Manuscript Collection: An insight into the medical beliefs, practices and healing plants used in 1930s Ireland.
Citation:
Shannon, Fiona Mairéad, Traditional Medicinal Knowledge documented in the Schools Manuscript Collection: An insight into the medical beliefs, practices and healing plants used in 1930s Ireland., Trinity College Dublin.School of Pharmacy & Pharma. Sciences, 2022Abstract:
The National Folklore Collection (NFC) in University College Dublin holds one of the largest collections of ethnographic material globally. In 2017, the Irish Folklore Commission Collection (1935-1970), housed within the NFC, was inscribed into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The Schools Manuscript Collection (SMC) is one body of information within this material. It contains over 700,000 pages of regional Irish traditional and folkloric knowledge, collected by schoolchildren through a nationwide scheme implemented in the 1930s, called The Schools Folklore Scheme. The collection has been digitised and is available online at Dúchas.ie.
The research in this thesis explores traditional medicinal knowledge (TMK) within the collection, identifying key healing beliefs and practices in 1930s Ireland and finding the most prominent medicinal plant species used at that time. The TMK from two geographically and socio-economically different regions, Wexford and Roscommon, was transcribed from the physical manuscripts, collated, and analysed using NVivo analytical software. There were 5,224 TMK data entries extracted from the Wexford and Roscommon material. The majority of the treatments described the use of plants or ritual practices to treat minor dermatological and respiratory complaints. The most frequently cited plant species were dandelion, nettle and dock. The most significant difference between the two areas was observed in the ritual practices, whereby there were several ritual practices unique to Roscommon.
Following this, an exploration of the online Dúchas database was conducted, examining its interface and functionality. The most highly cited medicinal plants identified in the first part of the analysis were utilised as probes to extract information from the Dúchas database and compare results to the previous search to verify the database s reliability. The analysis of the Dúchas database found the database to be user-friendly. However, limitations of the database were identified and counteracted where possible. The most significant limitation involved transcription variation of the database, i.e., not all the scanned images of the SMC were fully transcribed; therefore not all the content was searchable at the time of this study. The three plants used as probes extracted similar information to the previous manual search from Wexford and Roscommon, although the Dúchas search did not capture finer details from the collection. This issue was potentially due to the transcription variation, and as transcription is ongoing, this issue may be resolved over time. However, for this analysis, the findings showed the Dúchas database to lack the comprehensiveness of the previous manual search.
The study s final aspect involved contacting and interviewing original participants of the scheme, documenting their recollections of the scheme, particularly their memories of TMK, and linking their recollections to their respective schools material. Eleven participants were interviewed from across the country, ranging from 86 to 93 years of age. In the participant interviews, the interviewees clarity of recall varied. Ten of the eleven participants school s material was located. Entries corresponding to four participants were identified. Five participants recalled collecting TMK, and there was a direct correlation between three of the participants TMK recollections and their entries in the archives. One-third of all the TMK entries analysed included the use of a plant. There were 191 plant mentions and 64 plant species named. Six of the plants directly linked to the original participants, dandelion, comfrey, dock, potato, tea, and ivy, were among the most highly cited in the Wexford and Roscommon analysis. Interviewing original participants to the scheme provided a unique insight into the SMC and material housed within it. Due to the ages of the participants, such a study cannot be reproduced; thus, it was a unique opportunity to collect such information.
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Royal College of Physicians of Ireland
Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
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https://tcdlocalportal.tcd.ie/pls/EnterApex/f?p=800:71:0::::P71_USERNAME:FSHANNONDescription:
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Author: Shannon, Fiona Mairéad
Advisor:
Sheridan, HelenPublisher:
Trinity College Dublin. School of Pharmacy & Pharma. Sciences. Discipline of PharmacyType of material:
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