Post by Tides on Aug 20, 2016 10:40:01 GMT -6
Years ago, when I was first getting into CR, I picked up a used copy of Irish Folkways (Estyn Evans) - it's came well recommended (http://paganachd.com/faq/readinglist.html). I was still in college and thoroughly overwhelmed, so I shelved it. When we moved this year, I rediscovered it when I was trying to make some kind of order of our huge book collection and had a go at it.
I don't merely dislike this book. I have serious problems with this book. If the author were still alive, he'd be getting a strongly worded letter. To my eyes, it reads as a sickening combination of poverty porn and colonial superiority, neither of which make me comfortable reading the book, much less using this to inform any kind of spiritual practice. I showed the text, out of religious context, to a friend of mine, a queer man of color who does a lot of activism, and he agreed with me, asking why I was reading something that showed such contempt for the people it's observing.
Has anyone else read the text? It was out of print when I bought my copy, but, according to Amazon, it's been brought back to life and is in print.
I would love to read about folkways of Ireland, but I also understand that, obviously, Ireland was late to industrialization and its population had limited literacy, so most, if not all, of the books will retrospective or written from someone outside the culture. Are there any books that are more respectful of the Irish/sympathetic to the suffering they endure(d) through modern times?
I don't merely dislike this book. I have serious problems with this book. If the author were still alive, he'd be getting a strongly worded letter. To my eyes, it reads as a sickening combination of poverty porn and colonial superiority, neither of which make me comfortable reading the book, much less using this to inform any kind of spiritual practice. I showed the text, out of religious context, to a friend of mine, a queer man of color who does a lot of activism, and he agreed with me, asking why I was reading something that showed such contempt for the people it's observing.
Has anyone else read the text? It was out of print when I bought my copy, but, according to Amazon, it's been brought back to life and is in print.
I would love to read about folkways of Ireland, but I also understand that, obviously, Ireland was late to industrialization and its population had limited literacy, so most, if not all, of the books will retrospective or written from someone outside the culture. Are there any books that are more respectful of the Irish/sympathetic to the suffering they endure(d) through modern times?
