School: Scádán
- Location:
- Scardaun, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: F. J. Walls
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0265, Page 014
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: Scádán
- XML Page 014
- XML “Halloween Night”
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
- Long ago the Irish people celebrated two great days one the first of May and the other Hallow eve night. On May day the people put flowers on the threshold because the people of ancient Ireland believed in fairies and were afraid of them. On May day the people would not give away a drop of milk because they used to think they would be giving away the butter. If anyone came in to on May day they would take the churn and say "God bless the cows and the butter" I am not concerned any longer about May day. I am telling you the fun boy's have on Hallow Eve Night. For many days children are collecting nuts and apples and sweets.
When Hallow Eve night comes a lot of boys and girls get to-gether in some house to have great fun. They hang an apple out of the ceiling and the children try to catch it in their mouths with their hands behind their backs. Then they get basin of water and put a shilling or a sixpence and try to catch it in their mouths and it below in the bottom of the water. Then the children eat nuts and sweets and monkey nuts which have to be bought because they do not(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Seán Mágh Oireachtaigh
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Correal, Co. Roscommon
