School: Danescastle

Location:
Caisleán an Dinigh, Co. Loch Garman
Teacher:
Micheál Ó Loinghsigh
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0875, Page 036

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0875, Page 036

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  1. XML School: Danescastle
  2. XML Page 036
  3. XML “Ancient Pastime of Mumming”

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    mummer represents some noble man of Érin long ago. Sometimes each set differs in the noble men they represent. The Bridge mummers represented "Michael Dwyre, Art Mac Murragh, Colum Cille, Father John Murphy, Patrick Sarsfield, John Kelly, Wolfe Tone, Brian Boru, King William and others.
    They dance all Irish dances and they dance to a Melodian and a Flute. Some farmers invite the mummers to their barn, and when they are finished mumming they give everyone the tea, and then they go out in the barn again and dance until morning.
    When the mumming season is over, the mummers hold a ball. They all give some subscription and they buy what they think will be enough to give tea to themselves and the people they invite
    Then they go to some farmer and ask him for the largest barn he has, they go to the barn the night before the ball and decorate it with nice papers, they sweep it out, and get lamps for the following night. Then they go and ask a couple of girls to get the tea ready for those who they are going to entertain. The crowd turns up about eight o'clock and they mum first then they get the tea, and when the tea is over they dance until five or six o'clock. This is a custom with every set of mummers around here.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Language
    English
    Informant
    Elisabeth Fardy
    Gender
    Female
    Age
    70
    Address
    Droichead Eoin, Co. Loch Garman