School: Cahermurphy, Cill Mhichíl (roll number 15327)
- Location:
- Cathair Mhurchú, Co. an Chláir
- Teacher: Séamus Ó Laoighléis
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0602, Page 177
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: Cahermurphy, Cill Mhichíl
- XML Page 177
- XML “Superstitions”
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
- In every part of Ireland there are many and varied superstitions about different days and nights in the year.
Here are some of the beliefs :–
On the 1st. of January people say that if a red-haired woman comes into a house early in the morning she will bring bad luck to that house for that year but if a black-haired boy comes in first he will bring good luck. On St. Brigid's night a crowd of little girls dress up a doll in white and carry her around from house to house and at each door they recite the following rhyme.:–
"Here's St. Brigid dressed in white,
Give her something for the honour of the night".
Then the people of the house usually give them some money and they go on to the next house. They call the doll a "Briġidín". On May night, that is the night before the 1st. of May some people keep their milch cows under lock fearing their neighbours would come and milk them and so steal the butter from those cows for that year. On the 11th November (St. Martins day):(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Máire Treasa Ní Chonchubhair
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Cathair Mhurchú, Co. an Chláir
