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A seanchaí ( or ; plural: ) is a traditional Gaels storyteller or historian, serving as an oral repository. In Scottish Gaelic the word is (; plural: seanchaidhean). The word is often anglicisation as shanachie ( ).
The word , which was spelled (plural ) before the Irish language spelling reform of 1948, means a bearer of "old lore" (). In the Gaels culture, long lyric poems which were recited by bards ( in the original pre-1948 spelling) in a tradition echoed by the .
were servants to the heads of the lineages and kept track of important information for them: laws, genealogies, annals, literature, etc. After the destruction of Gaelic civilization in the 1600s as a result of the English colonialism, these more formal roles ceased to exist and the term came to be associated instead with traditional storytellers from the lower classes.
The made use of a range of storytelling conventions, styles of speech and gestures that were peculiar to the Irish folk tradition and characterized them as practitioners of their art. Although tales from literary sources found their way into the repertoires of the , a traditional characteristic of their art was the way in which a large corpus of tales was passed from one practitioner to another without ever being written down. passed information orally through storytelling from one generation to the next about Irish folklore, myth, history and legend, in medieval times.
The distinctive role and craft of the is particularly associated with the Gaeltacht (the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland), although storytellers recognizable as were also to be found in rural areas throughout English-speaking Ireland. In their storytelling, some displayed archaic Hiberno-English idioms and vocabulary distinct from the style of ordinary conversation.
At events such as ' festival in New Inn, County Galway, and the All-Ireland Fleadh Ceoil storytellers who preserve the stories and oratory style of the continue to display their art and compete for awards. Edmund Lenihan is one notable modern-day , based in County Clare.
Actor Eamon Kelly was well known for his portrayals of the traditional , and ran several series of one-man shows in Dublin's Abbey Theatre.
The Shanachies are a cricket club playing in the Inner West Harbour grade competition in Sydney.
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