This collection of fourteen essays covers a wide range of material that reflects the current range of enquiry within the traditional discipline of folklore, the range of interaction between it and various other disciplines, and indeed the breadth of Gearóid Ó Crualaoich's own interests.

Areas covered include the history and practice of fieldwork / collection, the historical and current interaction between the oral and written traditions in Ireland, the use of oral sources for historiography, the ideologies underlying the establishment of museums in Ireland and internationally, and individual studies of oral and material phenomena, an Ghaeilge agus an idé-eolaíocht pholaitiúil