School: An Chill, Dúngarbhán (roll number 630 or 16748)
- Location:
- Kill, Co. Waterford
- Teacher: Tomás Breathnach
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0650, Page 153A
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- XML “Amlais Gathering”
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- Amlais gathering is an old custom on in a great many places on Halloween. On that night the young man of the place dress themselves in quaint old garments. At nightfall they join in gangs and go around from house to house looking for amlais. At each house they sing, dance and play music. They get apples or money at nearly every house. They break the bottoms out of old bottles and blow through the necks of the bottles to frighten people. The amlais gatherers always wear masks on their faces so as to prevent the people from knowing them. About six gangs of amlais gatherers came to our house and we had great looking at the way they were dressed. The sixth gang was the gang I liked best. There were four men in it. One of them wore a shirt over his top-coat and a trousers with no legs. Another wore a large mask on his face and had an old shirt pulled up on his legs. The third had his face covered with wool and wore a coat four times too small for him and
