School: Loughanvally (roll number 8363)
- Location:
- Loughanavally, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: Mrs. O'Connor
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0742, Page 329
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: Loughanvally
- XML Page 329
- XML “The Local Fair”
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
- The fairs most convenient to the people here are held in Moate Castletown Clara Kilbeggan Mullingar. Sometimes buyers come around to the houses and buy cattle.
When buying cattle you give half a crown a head in luck money. When the bargain is made the men concerned spit on their hands and shake hands. The fairs are held in the fair green as shopkeepers objected to the beasts destroying the side paths. When a man buys cattle he puts a scissors mark on their ears or a mark with raddle on the flank, so that they can recognise them from strange cattle. The biggest fairs in the year are the April and November fairs.
Long ago they used have a fair in Uisneach. All the provinces of Ireland met at "Aill na míre" and every one from each province came to the fair there. Now there is a flag post out of this rock and the tricolour is hung on it on national festivals. At the fair in Uisneach they spent the whole week in story telling dancing feasting and(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Christy Scally
- Gender
- Male
