I'm trying to find the time period in which something akin to that picturesque irish village by the sea existed.
So... that'll be Theme Park Ireland you're looking for?
beachbum mentioned settings—and if you think Secret of Roan Inish is "Theme Park Ireland" you need to start over.
1970's?
If you are going for Theme Park Ireland it doesn't matter when you set it cos it won't be realistic anyway.
This is you being antagonistic and not helpful.
Ermmm unfortunately you can't actually stop me. Painful I know.
You're not offering any helpful suggestions; you're just poking, based presumably on your magic DNA.
My whole point is that, as someone who actually is half Irish, I find your whole idea offensive.
If you want to write about someone else's country, do some proper research.
Oh my, how
quaint!
How fortunate that I have actually "done some proper research." And unlike you, I did mine in Irish. It's
ever so much more effective than DNA gazing.
I ain't touching that with a muddy shillelagh.......
Now see that? That's offensive. It's not shillelagh; that's English.
You meant
an sail éille, and it's used in
bataireacht. Shillelagh was adopted as an offensive stereotype by the English in the eighteenth century as a way of mocking rural Irish, and implying they were always brawling.
It's not well meant. Perhaps you should consult your DNA more closely next time?
beachbum you might look at the suggestions upthread; be aware that a lot of what people think of as Irish fairy tales are at best Anglo-Irish corruptions by well-meaning English writers like Yeats and Lady Gregory.
They're bowdlerized, and often dramatically changed. For instance, the modern popular idea of the leprechaun; the original Old Irish luchorpán in medieval texts were a small humanoid water-dwelling otherworld folk with the characteristics of fertility symbols.
You might look for the tales that are associated with the
Táin but are not actually part of it. They're not light and bright fairy tales though; they're about raids and elopements and other world journeys. See the recent English translations in
Early Irish Myths and Sagas by Gantz, for instance.
If you want to look at the English versions, that's fine, but be aware you're seeing re-written re-imagined stories with French and German and English folklore mixed in with the Irish.
For additional background and help with settings see
Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island ; Peig was an old-school seanchaí, and grew up in the rural life that is alluded to in
Secret of Roan Inish.