Hunt Museum Nights programme is a series of evening events that invite audiences to engage with the museum’s collections through conversation, creativity and shared social experiences.
Clodagh Tait presents – Hairy Stories: Hair Traditions in Irish Folklore. This lecture will engage with some of hairy stories found in the Irish folklore archive. Tradition provided cures for baldness and potions that used hair as an ingredient. Local characters might be known for their hair. Supernatural beings like mermaids and the banshee were often depicted combing their hair. Meanwhile, changing hair and beard fashions and customs around grooming and cutting hair can also provide an insight into life in the past.
Clodagh Tait lectures in history in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. She has written extensively on early modern Irish social and cultural history, including the history of women and men; pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing; death, violence, martyrdom and protest; religious devotion; and the history of emotion. Her recent articles include studies of a Cork ghost story from 1688-9, of accounts of ‘crisis apparitions’ in Ireland and the USA, and of the magical and supernatural labours of women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is working on an anthology of Irish women’s folklore and a book on cursing and blessing in Ireland.
Events published on Limerick.ie are subject to change. Readers are advised to check with the organiser for further details.
The Hunt Museum, Custom House, Rutland Street, Limerick City
