🍀 Archiving Irish Stereotypes in Newspaper Strips The comics page of an American newspaper from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century was rarely a neutral space. It reflected the attitudes, anxieties, and biases of the society that produced it, often with a frankness that later generations would find uncomfortable. Among the most persistent patterns […]
🍀 Irish Folklore in Early Horror Films Strange Origins Irish folklore in early horror films is a subject that deserves far more attention than it typically receives. The connection is not incidental. Long before studio horror developed its familiar conventions, filmmakers were drawing on a body of legend that had been refined over centuries in […]
☘️ Origins of Irish Halloween superstitions in America Irish Halloween superstitions arrived in the United States largely through nineteenth-century immigration. Families who left rural counties during and after the Great Famine carried with them a seasonal calendar shaped by older Celtic belief. In Ireland, the end of October marked a hinge in the year, a […]
🍀 Collecting St. Patrick’s Day Postcards and Paper Ephemera Guide Collecting St. Patrick’s Day Postcards occupies a modest but steady place within the broader field of holiday ephemera. These cards, most commonly produced between 1905 and the early 1920s, reflect the height of the postcard era in the United States and Europe. They were printed […]
🍀 Irish Stereotypes in Early Film: Charm, Trouble, and Myth The Irish appeared on screen almost as soon as cameras started rolling. From the 1890s through the 1920s, filmmakers in America and Britain created a visual vocabulary for Irishness that leaned heavily on established stage conventions and popular assumptions. These portrayals hardened into recognizable types […]