School: Abhainn Bheag (roll number 3924)

Location:
Owenbeg, Co. Sligo
Teacher:
Criostóir Mac Gáfraidh
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0165, Page 195

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0165, Page 195

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Abhainn Bheag
  2. XML Page 195
  3. 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

  1. In this district the feasts which are celebrated in any special manner are limited to a few. If taken as they occur in the calendar they may be placed in the following order:- St Brigid's Night, St. John' Night, Halloween and St. Stephen's Day.

    On St. Brigid's Night a party of "Clathardhas" consisting of men and boys equipped with old torn clothes and whatever musical instruments they can lay hands on, travel around to every house in the district. They sing and dance as best they can and they generally get a few pence in every house. At the end of the journey they divide the takings.

    It is customary to light a bonfire on St. John's Night. It is usually lighted at a cross-roads. Turf and oil are gathered by the young men and boys of the district. When the fire is lighted the old men gather around it and spend the night conversing. The young people amuse themselves by throwing up lighted rockets saturated with oil. When they are going home a member of each family brings a lighted coal and throws it into the potato field to bring luck on the crops.

    Hallowe'en is celebrated in a way that is not commendable. The old customs of breaking cabbage on the roads is still practised by the young men and boys of this district. They also throw stumps and "heads" at the doors and very often gives rise to
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. events
      1. events (by time of year) (~11,476)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Lilly Hanley
    Gender
    Female
    Informant
    Michael Nevin
    Gender
    Male
    Address
    Fortland, Co. Sligo