School: Béal Dearg (roll number 11582)
- Location:
- Béal Deirg Mór, Co. Mayo
- Teacher: Pádraig Mac Conghamhna
Open data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Béal Dearg
- XML Page 426
- XML “Wakes and Funerals”
- XML “May Morning Superstition”
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
- (continued from previous page)Anybody meeting a funeral must return for three paces at least with it "Trí coiscéim na Trocaire" this is called. No nearways are ever taken with a funeral. In olden times before the roads were made, coffins had to be carried to the graveyard. It was often necessary to rest the coffin as in some cases they had to be carried 10 or 12 miles. There were special resting places marked here and there for the purpose of resting coffins. Anywhere a coffin rested was supposed to have the féar-gortach from which many people died by the roadside in the past.
- Nobody likes to be the first up in the village on May morning. No smoke will be seen in the houses until necessity compels somebody to start a fire. As soon as the smoke of a fire is seen smoke rises from every house. It may be that people don't want their neighbours to think they were up early bent on May morning mischief to the neighbour's cows.