Course details
The Higher Diploma in Folklore gives you the opportunity to study everyday life in Ireland, in all of its rich persity and its vast range of cultural expressions. Folklore, like its synonym popular culture, makes a study of everyday life, both past and present. Quite simply, it studies life by looking at how people lived their day-to-day lives: their houses, technologies, stories, rituals, beliefs, religion and cosmological understandings.
Folklore has a special place in the formation of Irish consciousness, in literature, and is one of the most important hallmarks of Irish culture. The Department of Folklore at UCC is ideally placed to offer unique insights into Irish life, popular culture and traditions. It is one of only two such departments in Ireland.
The study of ordinary life is at the heart of the Higher Diploma in Folklore. Years of experience in teaching and conducting original research into Irish life, traditions and folklore make the Department of Folklore and Ethnology the ideal place to study these aspects of Irish life, and make participating in the Higher Diploma in Folklore a rich and rewarding experience.
This programme is currently offered as a two year part-time (by day) option only
Course Details
By studying for a Higher Diploma in Folklore, you will cover key topics including:
- oral literature (e.g. narrative, story, and song)
- popular religion (e.g. belief, healing, festivals)
- popular material culture (e.g. vernacular housing, and technologies past and present).
This course will give you the skills to:
- trace the development of the discipline of Irish and European folklore
- engage with various aspects of traditional and contemporary Irish culture
- identify key genres in narrative, and recount the social and cultural context for storytelling
- evaluate the ethnographic value of archival documents
- be able to research an ethnographic project through archival sources
- design an ethnographic fieldwork project
- use sound and visual recording technology to conduct an ethnographic interview.
Course Practicalities
The Higher Diploma in Folklore is intended for those who already have a degree and who wish to study folklore intensively over two academic years, part-time. The course consists of modules to the value of 60 credits taken from a range of existing year 2 and 3 modules in BA Folklore. The subject modules will be chosen by the student in consultation with staff of the Department of Folklore, having regard to timetable constraints and suitability of course combinations.
The modules studied will vary for each inpidual student, depending on background, preferred area of specialisation etc.
Assessment
Assessment is carried out through a combination of continuous assessment, written assignments, and end-of-year examinations.
Updated on 08 November, 2015Course Location
About University College Cork
UCC was established in 1845 as one of three Queen’s Colleges - at Cork, Galway and Belfast. These new colleges theyre established in the reign of Queen Victoria, and named after her.
Queen's College, Cork (QCC) was established to provide access to higher education in the Irish province of Munster. Cork was chosen for the new college due to its place at the centre of transatlantic trade at the time and the presence of existing educational initiatives such as the Royal Cork Institution and a number of private medical schools.
The site chosen for the new college was dramatic and picturesque, on the edge of a limestone bluff overlooking the River Lee. It is associated with the educational activities of a local early Christian saint, Finbarr. It is believed that his monastery and school stood nearby, and his legend inspired UCC’s motto: ‘Where Finbarr Taught, let Munster Learn.’
On 7 November 1849, QCC opened its doors to a small group of students (only 115 students in that first session, 1849-1850) after a glittering inaugural ceremony in the Aula Maxima (Great Hall), which is still the symbolic and ceremonial heart of the University.
The limestone buildings of the Main Quadrangle (as it is now known) are built in a style inspired by the great universities of the Middle Ages, and theyre designed by the gifted architectural partnership of Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward. The iconic image of UCC, it is set in landscaped gardens and surrounds the green lawn known to all as the Quad.
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