It is no exaggeration, although it is a metaphor, to say that the whole of the west and south and north-west coast of Ireland is today strewn thick with the dead and dying traditions of the past as the forest is with leaves after some great storm. The leaves are now gone and the tree is bare; they will never grow again, never - to use the Irish phrase - while grass grows or water runs.
Douglas Hyde, The Nation, April/May, 1890.

Further Reading:
T J Westropp, Folklore of Clare (2000);
Edmund Lenihan, In Search of Biddy Early (1987);
McLysaght & Clifford, The Tragic Story of the Colleen Bawn (1964);
Máire MacNeill, The festival of Lughnasa (1962);
Patricia Lysaght, The Banshee (1987);
Stiofán Ó hEalaoire, Leabhar Stiofáin Uí Ealaoire (1981);
Edmund Lenihan, Long Ago by Shannon Side (1982);
Bairbre Ó Floinn, 'The Lore of the Sea in County Clare' in Dal gCais vol. 9;
Irish Folklore Commission, 'Schools Manuscripts Collection'. Available at Department of Irish Folklore, University College Dublin. Microfilm copies of Clare manuscripts available at Local Studies Centre, Clare County Library, Ennis.