School: Mastersons (roll number 8390)
- Location:
- Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Gobnait de Búit
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0197, Page 209
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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
- When a person dies he is clothed in a special dress for the grave. Long candles in brass candlesticks are lighted in the shape of a cross, on a table beside the bed, and a plate of salt is left on top of the body just where the hands of the dead person rest. The relatives of the dead person have a store of pipes and tobacco, and a pipeful is handed to each person at the wake and when the pipe is empty it is re filled. They also pass round saucers of snuff and once at least in the night wine and whisky with plates of biscuits. Towards morning all partake of tea, bread and butter. Before the funeral leaves the house, a meat lunch with plenty of wine and whiskey is provided. During the wake songs are sung, stories told and games such as: "Hardy Knuckles" are played, and often pieces of pipe shanks are thrown at each other for fun. I remember seeing a wake and funeral of this description about 50 years ago and 9 know it was the custom from much earlier times.
I remember being at a Roman Catholic house in S Leitrim when a funeral was leaving the house. The priest blessed a bucket of water, dipped a new whitewash brush into it and sprinkled the crowd who were waiting round the door. The priest was Father Kiernan.
- Informant
- D. Boyd
- Address
- Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim
