School: Drumkerl

Location:
Drumkerril, Co. Cavan
Teacher:
Ml. Mac Aoidh
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0970, Page 191

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0970, Page 191

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Drumkerl
  2. XML Page 191
  3. XML “Local Marriage Customs - Strawboys”

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

  1. (continued from previous page)
    he halts them and addresses some remarks to the marriage guests, who are by this time interested onlookers. These strawman generally go the houses at twilight during the summer, and during the winter, they generally carry torches, presenting a weird spectacle. Some of them carry rudely fashioned stakes, called by themselves "cants" or "plants", and they brandish these, whenever the occasion demands it. The sergeant of course asserts that they have come a long way, and are hungry, tired and thirsty, but he generally informs the guests that he will provide entertainment for them. He then calls on some of his "army" (by fictitious names of course) to sing or dance or do something to amuse. They comply. During any dance, they generally ask for the bride and bridesmaid as partners. These comply and are generally roughly handled in the dancing. Then they are generally treated
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. activities
      1. social activities (~7)
        1. rites of passage (~573)
          1. marriage (~4,283)
    Language
    English