Don't get me wrong Amy - I enjoy most of the collections, it's just that I find the ones published verbatim important for the beautiful use of vernacular - I detest the mock 'oirish' of some.
Both Kennedy's works are excellent as unspoilt collections of stories - there are a few more, Douglas Hyde and William Larminie, Cross and Slover and Jeremiah Curtin spring to mind.
Don't know how many of these are still available - we were collecting books just at the right time - 1970s 80s London was a paradise if you were prepared to spend the time - all sadly gone now.
We had an experience many years ago when we were recording stories from one of the last big storytellers in this area (West of Ireland).
We recorded a long tale from him he called 'The Gilla Dacker and his Horse'.
When we got back to England (where we were living at the time) we found the tale in P. H. Joyce's 'Old Celtic Romances' which we assumed he had learned it from so, when we returned the following year we asked him did he know about Joyce.
"Oh yes", he said, I read it once, but he has them all wrong".
The storyteller, Packie Murrihey, lad learned his stories from his father, who is still noted locally for starting a story on Monday night, breaking off when he judged his listeners had had enough for one sitting, then taking up where he left off the following night - sometimes stretching the story over five nights.
It takes skill and dedication to be able to do that.
Out story collection is somewhat large and covers the world - we are hopeful that Limerick University will allow us to bequeath it to them when the time comes - it's been a labour of love and it would be a shame for it to end up in Oxfam.
jim Carroll