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Passing the Time in Ballymenone
"This is an extraordinary book." ―Progress in Human Geography
". . . fresh and fascinating." ―Come-All-Ye
" . . . an extraordinarily rich and rewarding book. . . . it is about the effort of one man to find for himself and us the life's breath of the people of Ballymenone. . . . It is certainly a remarkable tour de force." ―Emmet Larkin, New York Times Book Review
The life and art, the folklore, history, and common work of a rural community in Northern Ireland―through the eyes and pen of gifted folklorist Henry Glassie. It is a classic in the fullest sense, reaching beyond folklore to all of humanity.
". . . fresh and fascinating." ―Come-All-Ye
" . . . an extraordinarily rich and rewarding book. . . . it is about the effort of one man to find for himself and us the life's breath of the people of Ballymenone. . . . It is certainly a remarkable tour de force." ―Emmet Larkin, New York Times Book Review
The life and art, the folklore, history, and common work of a rural community in Northern Ireland―through the eyes and pen of gifted folklorist Henry Glassie. It is a classic in the fullest sense, reaching beyond folklore to all of humanity.
872 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1982
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July 12, 2025
“Passing the time” is not wasting time; rather, it is a vitally important way of spending meaningful time with others, of achieving and maintaining community. Such is part of the message of Henry Glassie’s 1982 ethnographic study Passing the Time in Ballymenone.
Glassie, a folklore professor at Indiana University, was singularly thorough in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the céilí: “Céilís are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time.
Glassie prefers to turn away from the high-profile violence of the Northern Ireland conflict that was then unfolding in places like Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
Glassie, a folklore professor at Indiana University, was singularly thorough in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the céilí: “Céilís are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time.
Glassie prefers to turn away from the high-profile violence of the Northern Ireland conflict that was then unfolding in places like Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
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June 13, 2017Henry Glassie wrote this wonderfully respectful portrait of a rural Irish community in the nineteen seventies, recording the work practices and the social patterns of its farming people in great detail. He pays particular attention to the strong story-telling tradition that was still alive in the community at that time. He recorded many stories in great detail and highlighted the strong connection between factual history and myth. Now that such story-tellers and their way of life are gone forever, the value of this study is even greater in terms of a historical document. Would that a Henry Glassie had been around to record all the other such communities in the world.
June 23, 2009
This is one of my all-time favorite books. We're talking Top 10 Desert Island Reading here. It's an ethnography of an Ulster community with such amazing attention to detail--to everything from the music of the ceili, to two brothers rethatching their roof, to the earthenware in the cupboard. For anyone interested in Irish history and culture or in how to magically write about material culture, this is a classic.
November 23, 2009
I second Julie H.'s positive review.
I discovered this book in the mid 90s and immediately found it to be an amazingly thorough ethnographic analysis of the relationship between traditional culture and new technologies.
It's not a bed-table read, however. I believe I first read it with a pencil, highlighter and sticky notes in hand. Many books have come and gone over the years, but this one will always hold a prominent place on my bookshelf.
I discovered this book in the mid 90s and immediately found it to be an amazingly thorough ethnographic analysis of the relationship between traditional culture and new technologies.
It's not a bed-table read, however. I believe I first read it with a pencil, highlighter and sticky notes in hand. Many books have come and gone over the years, but this one will always hold a prominent place on my bookshelf.
January 24, 2015
“Passing the time” is not wasting time; rather, it is a vitally important way of spending meaningful time with others, of achieving and maintaining community. Such is part of the message of Henry Glassie’s detailed and thorough ethnographic study Passing the Time in Ballymenone.
Glassie, a long-time folklore professor at Indiana University, was very thorough indeed in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the ceili: “Ceilis are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time. Glassie prefers to turn away from the seemingly insoluble problems of the Northern Ireland conflict, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
Glassie, a long-time folklore professor at Indiana University, was very thorough indeed in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the ceili: “Ceilis are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time. Glassie prefers to turn away from the seemingly insoluble problems of the Northern Ireland conflict, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
May 11, 2022
This book would be one of ten I'd take to a desert island (among the others would be Dune, The Alexandria Quartet (if I can bring my omnibus edition), The Budayeen trilogy (again, omnibus), and probably Mary Gentle's Grunts). As works of ethnography and folklore go, it is second to none and really worth your time to read. Don't be deterred by its phonebook-like size, if anything, you'll be wishing it was longer (The Stars of Ballymenone is worth looking at if you want more by Glassie, and trust me, you do.) once you come to the end. This is the second copy I've purchased and it was worth every cent. That said, it can be a tad pricey if you buy it new, so...buy it used.
Masterfully edited and put together, truly a treasure chest in print.
Masterfully edited and put together, truly a treasure chest in print.
April 11, 2024
Too dense for me at this time, though I do want to finish it at some point
August 10, 2008
Dense and rich and delicious - I could only read a chapter at a time. Otherwise it's like trying to eat a whole cheesecake. Might be my favorite non-fiction book. Gorgeous
November 14, 2014
About as engaging as a cultural anthropology book can be expected to be.
April 23, 2010
I became a folklore major in college after listening to a lecture by Henry Glassie that I will never forget.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews