The National Folklore Collection in University College Dublin holds one of the largest collections of ethnographic material in the world. The value of this material was recognised in 2017, when it was inscribed into UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The Schools’ Manuscript Collection (SMC) is one body of information stored within this archive, that contains over 700,000 pages of regional Irish traditional knowledge (TM), collected by school children in the 1930s. The SMC is unique in content and in terms of how, when and why it was collected, with no comparative body of ethnographic information existing globally. In a recent study we identified and interviewed original participants to this scheme, documented their recollections and compared them with their original archival entries [1]. In this study we analyse and categorise ethnomedical material stored in the archive, obtained from two geographically and socio-economically different regions in the country, Counties Roscommon and Wexford, providing us with an insight into the healing herbs used and associated medicinal beliefs of Irish people at that time. Our analysis, comprised of 5,224 enthomedicinal data entries extracted from 190 different schools, involves two key steps (i) generation of a disease classification system, enabling identification of the most prominent conditions treated, (ii) identification of the main treatment categories; plant, animal, natural substances, religious, ritual and other. Subsequently, we analysed the entries citing use of a ‘plant’ (41.8%) and have identified the key genera and plant species used in the two regions (Figure 1). This has enabled us to draw comparisons, identify relationships and interpret the key medicinal treatments used in 1930s Ireland.
[1] Shannon F, Sasse A, Sheridan H, Heinrich M. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. 2017;13:65