School: An Chill, Dúngarbhán (roll number 630 or 16748)
- Location:
- Kill, Co. Waterford
- Teacher: Tomás Breathnach
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0650, Page 159D
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: An Chill, Dúngarbhán
- XML Page 159D
- XML “Amlais Gathering”
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
- The last night of October is called "amlais" night. It is also called snap-apple night and Hallowe'en. The word "amlais" means alms gathering. Hallowe'en is called "amlais" night because the young men of the district go around gathering alms or "amlais" on that night. This custom has died out now and there weren't any gathering "amlais" this year. They used to dress up in old clothes and put masks on or blacken their faces. They used to do this so that they wouldn't be known. They then went from house to house and danced and sang. Some of them used to have mouth-organs and when they went to a house one of them played the organ and the rest of them used to sing or dance. They usually went in groups
