School: Leixlip (C.) (roll number 2345)
- Location:
- Leixlip, Co. Kildare
- Teacher: Mrs. Harty
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0773, Page 260
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: Leixlip (C.)
- XML Page 260
- 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
- "Festival Customs"
In our district many feasts are observed in a special manner, such as on St. Stephen's Day when boys dress up and go from house to house carrying decorated bushes and collecting money "to bury the wren". They sing the wren's song. The actual words of this song are.
The Wren the Wren the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although she was small her family was great,
Rise up my lady and give us a treat,
All silver no brass, give us the price of a half a glass,On the eve of the feast of St. John bonfires are lit in his honour, and the red coals from the fire are put in the four corners of the garden for good luck. Long ago St. Martins Day was observed in this district but it is not done now. There was always a young cock killed in every house and the blood sprinkled in the four corners of the house. That night there was always a great feast held.Hallowe'en is also another feast which is highly honoured in our district. Boys and grown-up men gather together and go around to every house dressed up gathering nuts and(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Agnes Bell
- Gender
- Female
