School: Coolfancy, Tinahely
- Location:
- Coolafancy, Co. Wicklow
- Teacher: Dll. Ó Conaill
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0922, Page 005
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Coolfancy, Tinahely
- XML Page 005
- XML “November Eve”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- November EveOn the night of the 1st of November, boys go around as "baw-men". They wear vizors and they put on portions of womens clothes or old coats or old trousers which are all torn and jagged.
They give about half an hours visit to every house and they dance at the houses. One of them plays a musical instrument of some kind - a melodian, mouth organ or accordion.
They are give apples and nuts. If they speak it is in a disguised voice.
This custom arose from the Tuatha de Danann. It is siad that when they were beaten by the milesians they went in under the hills and became fairies. The hills used to be opened to allow then out for one night each year in Samhana. They scoured through the country terrifying the people them. From being so long confined under the hills they looked hideous. When they entered a house the people welcomed them and gave them tit bits lest they should do damage.Máirín Deegan, Milland, Tinahely
- Collector
- Máirín Deegan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Mill Land, Co. Wicklow
