Seanchaí

For the record label, see Shanachie Records.

A shanachie (pronounced "shan-a-hee" or "shawn-a-hee") is a traditional Irish story teller. This is the most common English spelling of the Irish word seanchaí. Various misspellings include seanachaí, senachaí, senachie and seanachie. Technically, the original Irish language spelling seanchaí is the only correct one, however, like many Irish language words, a more phonetic English spelling shanachie has become widely accepted.

The Irish language word seanchaí was spelled seanchaidh before the spelling reform which made the spelling more phonetic. It comes from the Irish root meaning "song" because in ancient celtic culture, the history and laws of the people where memorized in long lyric poems which were recited by bards.

The traditional art

A shanachie utilized a variety of storytelling conventions, styles of speech and gestures that were peculiar to the Irish folk tradition and characterized them as practitioners of this particular folk art. Although tales from literary sources found their way into shanachie's repertoires, a traditional characteristic of the shanachie was the way in which a large corpus of tales was passed from one practitioner to another without having been written down.

Because of their role as custodians of an indigenous non-literary tradition, the shanachie are widely acknowledged to have inherited the role of the fili of pre-Christian Ireland. However, unlike that of their ancient predecessors, the shanachie’s role was informal.

Some shanachie were itinerant travelers who went from one community to another offering their skills in exchange for food and temporary shelter. Others were members of a settled community and might be called "village storytellers."

The distinctive role and craft of the shanachie is particularly associated with the Gaeltacht, but storytellers recognizable as shanachie were found in rural areas throughout English-speaking Ireland as well. In their storytelling, some displayed archaic Hiberno-English idiom and vocabulary that would be out of place in ordinary conversation.

Modern times

Members of the Celtic Revival such as Padraic Colum took a great interest in the art of the shanachie, and through them the stories told by shanachie were written down, published, and distributed to a global audience.

At festivals such as mummers festival in New Inn, Co. Galway and the All-Ireland Fleadh Ceoil storytellers who preserve the stories and oratory style of the shanachie display their art and compete for awards. Eddy Lenihan is a notable modern-day shanachie of this ilk.

Although proponents of folk culture endeavor to keep the art of the shanachie alive, the role of the shanachie as both entertainer and conduit of information have been replaced in Irish society by printed materials, radio, television and computers.

Podcast

Since January 1, 2005, a podcast called The Seanachaí has been written and produced by Patrick E. McLean. While the name is an interesting nod to the Irish story-telling tradition, elements such as the creation of completely original stories, the telling of stories without the use of distinctive hand gestures, and much of McLean's subject matter (such as superheroes) marks its as a descendant of the folk tradition rather than a continuation of it.

Other uses of the term

Since the Scots speak essentially the same Gaelic language as the Irish and since they originally migrated from Ireland, it is not surprising that the term shanachie has been applied to traditional storytellers in Scotland as well. All uses ultimately have their roots in the traditional poets attached to the households of ancient Gaelic nobility.

References

• Padraig Colum, editor, A Treasury of Irish Folklore.
• Frank DeLaney, Ireland.
• Patricia A. Lynch, Joachim Fischer, and Brian Coates, Back to the Present: Forward to the Past--Irish Writing and History since 1798.
• The Seanachai Homepage