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School: Valleymount

Location:: Valleymount, Co. Wicklow
Teacher:: Dll. Ó Cochláin

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Festival Customs (continued)

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into a dark corner in a garden on Hollow E'en night. Then rewind it, and at the end of the thread he (she) would see their future spouse.

(6) If a girl eats an apple alone before a mirror at midnight with a lighted candle in her hand, she will see the men she is to marry peeping over her shoulder.

(7) Another custom is to lay several plates on the table. One has water on it, another clay, another has a ring, another a cross. Blindfolded people walk to the table. Whatever plate his (her) hand rests on foretells the fortune of the future 12 months. The water signify emigration, the clay death, the ring marrige, the cross a religous vocation.

(8) There is also the cracking of nuts.

Peggy Perry
Tulfarris
Blessington
(George Perry, Blacksmith 69yrs)

Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
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Festival Customs

Twelfth Night

This is sometimes Women's Christmas or Little Christmas. The women used to claimed this Christmas as their own. The feastings of Christmas were carried out but on a smaller scale.

This feast was called in Irish "Nodlag na mBan". The men used to say "Nodlag na mBan, Nodlag gan mhaith" but women used to say "Nodlag na mBan, Nodlag go maith".

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