All in! All in!: a selection of Dublin children's traditional street-games with rhymes and music

Scríbhinní Béaloidis / Folklore Studies 2

Eilís Brady

Children’s traditional street-games play an important part in the folk-life of a country. This book will help parents and educators to realize how happy children are, when given an opportunity to use their imagination and to create their own amusements, even in a restricted locale. It shows how traditional street-games and rhymes still flourish, and how children adapt traditions to a modern environment. It may encourage others to make similar collections in their own areas, both urban and rural.

Eilís Brady (1927–2007) was a member of the Editorial Staff of the Department of Education’s Publications Branch. She contributed a valuable collection of children’s folklore to the former Dept. of Irish Folklore, UCD. This material is now part of the National Folklore Collection, UCD. Her awareness of the similarity between the traditional customs and social attitudes of Gaeltacht people and those of native Dubliners sprang from her continued contact with Conamara since childhood and helped her to appreciate the importance and urgency of recording the lore and idiom of Dubliners.