Passing the Time in Ballymenone

Immersing myself into Glassie’s in-depth study of the people, customs, and physical space of this unique part of Ireland, I was struck by how much time and consideration Glassie exerted to really get to know the people and their histories, and how they constructed meaningful lives in spite of economic and political strife. It is a lesson to learn in our current economic times to examine our own ways that we frame our lives and how we construct a sense of personal and societal meaning. The lives of the people of the District are in effect essential and stripped of the complexity that 21st century America is now forced to re-examine. Without overly romanticizing the lifestyle of the elders, knowing that it comes from a history of hardship and political controversy, I see the value of looking inward to see what works and what doesn’t in society. Valuing simplicity and community may be a virtue that can get us through an unsettling time that pales in comparison to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rural Ireland.

Glassie begins his study by defining his discipline of folklore to be a “unified program for the study of human beings. It’s base is the manifest reality of the individual, the society, and the world.”(xiv) He sees his purpose is to search through forms for meanings and ultimately to identify values, to embed art in life’s thickness as a form of existential ethnography. In achieving this, Glassie is fully aware of the need to understand the language of daily life, and this he does with a respect and curiosity that is admirable. First, he establishes the region of his study, narrowing it down from country to “townland” to parish, to district. From there he enumerates the residents of the District of Ballymenone, breaking it down into familial groups, religion, and whether they are farmers or employed outside of agriculture. Finally, he describes in eloquent detail the visual distinctions of the area to create a mental image of the locale. With this setting, Glassie sets to task relating the social structure of the people through such traditions as Christmas mumming, nighttime gatherings of neighbors called ceilis, whose stories, he found, were “alive and throbbing with importance.”(33)

What he found was that the meanings within these stories lead into confrontation with fundamental values. Recounting tales of courage, tales of wit, he further delineates these stories (told by elder men of the area who have great pride in their role as story tellers) into “bids” (tales of wit) and “pants” (tall tales or jokes), and distinguishes them from history stories (Glassie examines these in great depth to uncover the intense pride and ownership of the people), which operate on repetition. The women, as well as the men sing, but many of the songs also tell stories and relate histories that keep the culture alive. He further explains the social structure of the District by explaining the bygone “joins” (the informal gathering of men to ceili and drink) and “balls” which were fund raisers for both sexes and all ages with ample food and drink, considered to be the peak of social interaction. All these traditions, repetitions, and structures bring about a cohesiveness necessary for a community to survive and thrive in good times and bad.

Glassie explains the method of his study—to study people not from the top down or the bottom up, but from the inside out. It is there that people are articulate and powerful and in control. In Ballymenone, this center is the hearth, at home, where the ceili is performed and history created. Half of the book is dedicated to a thorough examination of the oral tradition to establish an understanding of their history and values, but this sets the stage to examine the role that place and daily toil play in the overall structure of the District’s society. Placing the stories and histories in context with space and place completes the picture of a proud people.

Passing the time is what the people of Ballymenone say they are doing when they work all day and when they share their communal stories and lives in the evening, because it is indeed what happens. For each of us, time passes one way or another and that time is preserved only when people care enough to revel in every event and every life that touches them and to save these moments through story and song. Living for over ten years in a neighborhood where I may know of only one or two neighbors’ names and none of their personal stories and histories, I see how insular and fragmented my life is. My community is my workplace and those who are a part of that work-based environment, far removed from my home and neighborhood. We often say that our jobs do not define us, but for many of us, indeed they do. Perhaps a little diversity in our relationships assures us that if one community ends through losing a job or a home that another community will be there to give us a sense of belonging. Just as the people of Ballymenone have structured their lives to be intrinsically connected to the past and to place, we all could make a greater effort to create a community and a history in environments that have now been replaced by fleeting voices over the phone or words on a computer screen.
-Julie Sasse