School: Cor na Muclach (roll number 14470)
- Location:
- Cornamucklagh North, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Annie Ryan
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0206, Page 161
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: Cor na Muclach
- XML Page 161
- XML “Festival Customs”
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
- (continued from previous page)as the " Wren-boys Day ". It is an old custom which has been held in Ireland for centuries. It consists of a number of boys travelling from house to house carrying a dead wren in a coffin decorated with holly and ivy and asking for money to bury the wren. From earley morning batches of wren-boys may be seen usually ten or twelve dressed in coloured paper and playing musical instruments such as trumpets, french fiddles and tin-flutes. They dance and sing and perform many tricks. They have also a rhyme which they recite together which isTHE Wren, the Wren, the King of all birds
On St Stephen's Day she was caught in the furze"Up with the kettle and down with the pan
A penny or twopence to bury the wren
Christmas comes but once a year
And when it comes, it brings great cheer
And when it goes it goes away
And God be with St Stephen's Day
Up with the kettle and down with the pan
A penny or twopence to bury the wren "Every householder welcomes the wren-boys and they usually give them some money.(continues on next page)
