School: Gaddyduff (roll number 16642)

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1. The Bonfire Night

   

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   Everybody has a fire on the 23 June in honour of St. John. On the evening of the bonfire night all the boys in the town gather and gather a lot of bushes. In a big town all the boys go round and collect money and buy oil for the fire. Just when it is getting dark everybody light the fire. An old custom they had everybody puts out a little fire of their own and as the cows are going in at night they throw a coal over the cows backs and they put a coal into every field belonging to them for St. John to bless them. They would lift sticks no matter where they would get them, if you would have any bushes on a slap to keep in cattle you would need to be up and out very early because all the bushes would be away. There was a man who had a lot of fir and it was coming on to the bonfire night all the people gathered and made themselves in two groups and the man and his wife were out watching the fir. There were two doors on the barn, the woman was at the front and the

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. events
      1. events (by time of year) (~11,476)
         1. Feast of St John (~208)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Liam Grant

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   14

   Address

   Magheramore, Co. Donegal

   Informant

   Frank Doherty

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   56

   Address

   Magheramore, Co. Donegal