Healers and Healing

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course examines the practice of folk medicine in Ireland, in the past and in the present. Irish popular tradition includes a great richness of material on this subject, encompassing a wide range of healing agents and media, from botanical remedies to prescribed rituals and actions, and from specific locations to particular individuals who were credited with special powers. The importance of ritual behaviour will be examined, as will the position of the healer in the community. The course will look at what we might learn about the dynamics of popular tradition, and the ways in which popular tradition functions, from an examination of folk healing practices. The remarkable resilience of many such practices will also be explored.