The Supernatural Famine

This book offers a reading of Lady Gregory's early folktale collections, Visions and Beliefs In The West Of Ireland [1920], A Book of Saints and Wonders [1906] and Poets and Dreamers: Studies and Translations from the Irish [1900], as a metaphoric means of collective famine expression. The stories are preoccupied with the supernatural infliction of illness, injury and death and the respective desire for a cure. By analysing famine markers within the tales - evident in their concern with consumption, cure, faith, communal survival, gothic landscapes and the subsequent impact of survival manifest in shame and the need for silence - it is argued that this post-famine generation of storytellers is unable to represent the material factors and conditions of famine Ireland and thus turn to the supernatural for an alternative means of expression. This analysis is posited within the framework of Gregory's role as collector for the Irish Literary Revival and her annexation of native authenticity as a means of cultural restoration