School: Meelick (B.)
- Location:
- Meelick, Co. Clare
- Teacher: Eoghan Ó Néill
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0597, Page 461
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- The boys in this district from ten years up to seventeen go killing the wren a fortnight before St Stephen's Day. When they kill him they put his body in salt or saw-dust to corrupting. They generally go in pairs
A week before St Stephen's Day they provide their dress. One dressed as a woman and the other as a man. The holly-bush is dressed and an empty match box fastened to it with the wren inside the night before.
The instruments they play are mouth-organs and Jews-harps. Some mask their faces, other colour them. They rise early to be first at the houses. Most of them travel on bicycles and the rest walk it. The elder boys make from ten to fourteen shillings, the younger ones collections amount to from three to eight shillings.
When they come home they go to the Pictures.
We go to Mass on St Patrick's Day. The men and women wear shamrocks and the children harps and ribbons. A crowd of boys from our village go to the Pictures
Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. People go to Mass that day and get(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Patrick Hogan
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Coonagh East, Co. Limerick
- Informant
- Denis Hogan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 60
- Occupation
- Labourer
- Address
- Coonagh East, Co. Limerick
