School: Bellewstown (roll number 1120)
- Location:
- Bellewstown, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Uinsionn Ó Draghneáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0685, Page 007
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: Bellewstown
- XML Page 007
- XML “Hallow-Eve”
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
- Hallow Eve is an ancient festival celebrated in Ireland every year. In Bellewstown the children eagerly await the 31st of October and its Octave. On that night all the children sit round the fire listening to old stories, and eating nuts, apples, sweets, brack, and concannon
There are many customs attached to this festival. A person is sent to look into a tank or river or well until someone speaks to him. A bag of straw or turnip was tied to the door and the first to open the door would get a good fright if it fell on them.
Old folk put food on the table so that some hungry spirit might eat it. Another game is putting three saucers on the table one containing water another clay and a third a ring. If you put your hand on the water you crossed the sea. If you put it on the clay you would die or if you put it on the ring you would be married.
The small children hand an apple out of the ceiling and try to catch it in their mouth. When Hallow'een is over the await(continues on next page)
- Collector
- John Cunningham
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Hilltown, Co. Meath
