School: Ringville, Slieverue (roll number 6621)
- Location:
- Tigh na Rinne, Co. Chill Chainnigh
- Teacher: Síle de Paor
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0845, Page 055
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: Ringville, Slieverue
- XML Page 055
- XML “St Stephen's Day”
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
- On St. Stephen's Day the boys of the district rise early to look for the wren. Whether they catch one or not they pretend to have one. Sometimes they may have a dead one. They decorate a holly bush with coloured papers and ribbons and tie the wren to it. Then they dress themselves in long skirts or trousers. They put masks in their faces. They sometimes have melodians or mouthorgans. They go from house to house. They walk into the farmer's kitchen uninvited. They dance and play and sing the wren song.The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
On St. Stephen's Day she was caught in the furze;
Although she's little her family is great,
Put your hand in your pocket and give us a trate,
Up in the ivy or holly tree
Where all the birds could follow me,
I follow the "wran" three miles or more
On a cold and frosty morning.
I wish you all a happy New Year,
A happy New Year, a happy New Year,
I wish you all a happy New Year,
Plenty of money and barrels of beer.(continues on next page)
