School: Attymass B.

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1. Pósaithe (continued)

   

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   and start dancing. That would be carried out till the cleariarnes or wattlers would come.
   Any wattler who had a gun took it with him. Each man was numbered as two, four, six, eight and so on and they appointed a captain. Straw hats the wore, going into a peek at the top ad with ribbons of different colours.
   At first the captain would order a couple of shots to be fired outside before going into the house. Then he himself would walk in, stand in the middle of the floor and order numbers two, four, six, to the room and the rest into the kitchen. No drink was allowed to be taken by the guests while they were in the house and often the man of the house welcomed the wattlers because so much drink was saved.

   Then the man and wife had to dance with the two who stood for them. These were the captains orders which had to be obeyed.

   The table was put in the floor and the captain would call on one of the wattlers by the numbers to dance and he had to dance on the table. It kept on like that till it was time to go home. Then outside a few shots more were fired to announce that the wattlers were retiring. The wedding then continued. If a of the wattlers had any spite against the man they all took drink and left nothing at the guests.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. genre
      1. poetry
         1. folk poetry (~9,504)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Othon Ferguson

   Gender

   Male

   Informant

   James Ferguson

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   65

   Address

   Attymass, Co. Mayo