Edmund Lenihan

"Storytelling has always been the poor relation. You’ve Irish music, singing and dancing, but storytelling was never on the national airwaves have never done anything for it. Media in general has rarely done anything for it. Anytime I go abroad, I make that point absolutely clear, that if storytelling survives in this country, it’s by accident: I’m not in the least sentimental about that point."

"America has done more for Irish storytelling than Ireland, which is an awful thing to say, but Ireland has let storytelling down, so much so that I have been collecting and collecting, regardless. I have never had help, it has all come out of my own pocket, but now I have a collection, thousands and thousands of hours of recorded material. What will I do with it? I guarantee you it won’t go to an Irish institution anyway."