A NewYork-based linguistics professor from Galway, Ireland has
released the first Irish-language public-domain audiobook, a 1901
collection of folklore from four West of Ireland counties entitled An
Sgéaluidhe Gaedhealach
(the Gaelic Storyteller).
Professor
Brian Ó Broin, a linguistics professor at William Paterson
University, New Jersey, recorded the 35 stories over a sixteen month
period, beginning with a makeshift arrangement of midrange recording
equipment and software before completing the project in the studios
of his university's radio station, WPSC-FM.
Over that period forty hours of raw recordings were edited down to
thirteen hours in
the final product.
The book, An
Sgéaluidhe Gaedhealach,
was compiled by Douglas Hyde, an important Gaelic Revival figure of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who went on to become
president of Ireland in 1938.
An Sgéaluidhe
Gaedhaelach was
the result of a folklore-collection project that Hyde began while
still a university student at
Trinity College, Dublin in
the 1880s and was part of his
lifelong campaign to
demonstrate that Gaelic Ireland had a folk literature that was every
bit as vigorous as any modern literature in Europe. The 35 stories,
collected orally from accomplished
storytellers in
five
Irish counties, provide an
amazing cross-section of ancient and modern narrative,
ranging from adventure stories from
the first millennium to
nearly-contemporary stories of ghosts, bandits, witches, lords,
ladies, and buried treasure.
While
several books in Irish have been recorded professionally, this is the
first completely public-domain audiobook ever recorded in Irish, and
is now available for free download in printed and recorded formats at
www.librivox.org.
More
Information: https://sites.google.com/view/sgeal/
Contact:
Professor Brian Ó Broin, brianeanna [at] hotmail.com
Email
professor for telephone number, whatsapp contact, Skype, Zoom, etc.