School: Duleek (B.) (roll number 6554)
- Location:
- Duleek, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Micheál Ó Braonáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0682, Page 272
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: Duleek (B.)
- XML Page 272
- XML “Wakes and Funerals”
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 at a wake, in a house, the people used to nail sheets on the wall and cover the windows, and they would not leave a bit of the wall without covering it with a sheet.
The people long ago never used to wake the people in the same room they died in. They used to keep the people in the house for the 3 days and not bring them to the chapel at all but bring them from the house to the grave yard. When a person would die the people in the house used to stop the clock and not put it on again until the funeral had left the house.
They used to play games at the wake long ago. When the people would be sitting round the fire, one would go round with his hands joined and a button in it and all the others would have their hands the same way. Then the person with the button would go to everyone and say "Here is the button, and be sure you have it", and he would put it in one of the people's hands. Then the others would guess who had it. If they guessed wrong, they would get a blow of a strap. Some people know when a person is lying, because they smell the smell of clay, and call it "the whiff on the clay"
- Collector
- Séumas Ó Gormáin
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Commons, Co. Meath
- Informant
- Thomas Gorman
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 63
- Occupation
- Railway worker
- Address
- Commons, Co. Meath
