School: Gortnessy (roll number 7235)
- Location:
- Gortinessy, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: M. Nic Sheáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1030, Page 354
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: Gortnessy
- XML Page 354
- XML “The Local Fairs”
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 local fair is held in Pettigo. It is always held in the town. Sometimes dealers buy cattle at farmers’ houses. The fair is held in Pettigo in the streets but larger towns such as Ballyshannon have fair greens. There are no traditions of fairs held on hills, in the neighbourhood of cemeteries or castles, forts etc. Toll is paid on some cattle where there is a public fair, 6 cents per head is paid. Luck money or “luck penny” which it is often called is given. If a man gets a good price for his cattle he gives a good “luck penny” and if he gets a bad price he gives a bad “luck penny”. When a bargain has been made the people spit on their hands and strike them together. The animals are marked in different ways. Some people tie a piece of cloth or wool on some part of them, some make scissor marks on them. The cattle are not marked with mud.September fair is a good fair for lambs. May and November are “hiring” fairs. Long ago July fair was called the Lammas Fair and the day after it was a fair for children and all the children went there for a day’s fun. It was called the “Wee Lammas Fair.”
- Collector
- Ernest Crawford
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Cullion, Co. Donegal
- Informant
- Mr B. Crawford
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 59
- Address
- Cullion, Co. Donegal
