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(St. John was martyred by beheading in Connaught it is said that he was burned alive) The celebration marks the nativity or birth of St. John Baptist Other dates with like celebrations: Saints Peter and Paul June 29 and July 4. Holiday Checklist 1. Do not eat blighted blackberries and other fruit which have been spat upon by the P`uca. lest the blight affect you too. (frost damage=blight) 2. Children should not touch the fruit. 3. The fairies were let loose to visit all the plants and blast berries with their breath. 4. Leave some fruits outside for the fairies to ensure a good crop in the next year. 5. Sprinkle the animals with holy water. 6.Give church offering for Holy Souls. 7. Light candles on the night after Nov. 1, one for each deceased relative, at a window in the room where death occurred. 8. Place a lighted candle in the window if it faces the graveyard. 9. Place a candle in a lantern left lit all night on the grave of a loved one. 10. Meet your lost friends at the graveyard gate at night. 11.Watch out, you may meet those you have injured. 12 .Place beans and nuts in the fire and watch them jump 13. Melt lead through a key to form shapes suggestive of destiny in the water. Shapes formed will indicate vocation. 14. Place your shift or shirt in front of the fire to see who turns it. 15. Throw a reel of thread into a lime kiln to find out who would wind it up again. 16. Place a snail in the hollow between two plates and watch for the slime trail to see a meaningful shape. 17. Eat a salt herring in three bites to see the future husband in a dream. 18. Play Snap apple: suspend a cord with a cross stick with apple at one point and a lighted candle at the other. Twirl the stick and try to catch the apple, not the candle, in the mouth. In the case of children or lack of nerve substitute a dirty potato for the candle! 19. Duck for apples and coins in a tub 20. Eat cream pancakes, stampy, apple cakes, nuts and black berry pie. 21. Find a ring in your cake or champ and you will be next married. Other things to put into the cake: a pea, a silver coin, a piece of matchstick, thimble, religious metal, button, rag. Wrap them in greaseproof paper and put them into the barm brack .(see recipes below) The thimble signifies spinserhood, matchstick means your husband will beat you. Pea is for poverty, bean is for wealth.The religious medal indicates religious orders. The button is for bachelorhood. The rag is for poverty. 22. Find a little boat and be blessed with a journey to Skellig rocks. 23. On the way to and from the gathering play tricks- take the wheels off of carts and place them on roof tops. Take Cabbages. Paint a man sleeping by the roadside. 24. Place a stake at the junction of two streams upright. Look at it on Nov.1 to forecast the winter weather. 25. Look at the moon on the 31st also to determine the weather 26. Beware of the Fairies in their forts. 27. Put up a wood cross in the thatch or a Parshell 28. Sprinkle holy water on the door. 29. Spit on the animals to settle them down and remove the Sprite 30. Crawl through a briar rooted at both ends, making your request for the help of evil spirits 31. Provide a feast for the poor 32. Do not eat meat on the vigil- the 31st 33. Eat Colcannon-(potatoes and cabbage and onion).
Colcannon for 6 1 1/4 lbs. Kale or green Cabbage
1.Simmer kale or cabbage in 2 cups water and oil for 10 minutes, drain,
chop fine. 34. Make stampy cakes from grated raw potato and sugar caraway and cream, boxty, oatcakes, dumplings.
Ingredients: 1/2 pound hot cooked potatoes
1.Drain, peel and mash the hot potatoes. Makes 12 35. No Hollantide without a pudding. So�.Make a pudding!
36. Give children apples and nuts.
40. Store crops and livestock for the cold season.
41.Get turf and wood for fires ready, including the bog deal or pine found
when digging turf.
42. Everyone has debts at Hallow E'en - pay workers, pay rents, settle
debts.
43. Have a fair-to spend the money collected!
44. Carry a blackhandled knife and have a steel needle stuck in the coat
collar or sleeve. In case of fairies you can turn your coat inside out and
so disguised escape.
45. When throwing out water on the night call out Seachain (beware) or
Chughaibh an t-uisce (water towards you) to warn the gosts and fairies to
step aside.
46. Listen for revelry from within ringforts.
47. Light a fire, preferably at the crossroads (include in it tires and
whatever you have that burns)
48. Put crackers on the roadside to explode under cars
49. Go door to door masked (a guiser) and ask for funds for the Halloween
party.You may take clubs and sticks and invoke the name of Colum Kill
saying:
Blow horns to announce that you are coming Disguise your voice and chant your request.
50.Give the guisers white bread and butter and milk, or money
51. Have a procession led by a person in a white sheet- the Lair Bhan "the
white mare" - the messengers of the Muck Olla-you can also exact donations
from merchants.
52. Play traditional wake games. (See O' Suilleabhain's study of Wake
Amusements) .
53. Hollow out a great big turnip. Carve into it a face. Light it with a
candle and suspend it from a wire or rope and walk from place to place. (see
instructions below!)
54.Consult all of the many divinations.
55. Make Barm Brack and hide a ring or other object in it with the
resultant luck being given to the finder. (see 21. above for charms to
include)
Recipes! Take your pick:
Soak the above ingredients overnight in a cupful of strong tea.
Put into a well-oiled loaf tin and bake at 350 Deg. F. one hour and ten
minutes.
This recipe is for a traditional current bread in the shape of a round
cake.
Instructions:
Soak the dried fruit in strong black tea before use, at least two hours.
A landmark day as the first day of Summer. It was a gale day when land
tenancy began or ended or when a half-year's rent was due. It was a day for
change and marketing of ones skills by taking a tool symbolic of one's
occupation to the fair. The cattle sheltered in the Winter and Spring were
taken to the Summer pastures or: "Buaile".The fields scheduled for
harvesting were carefully protected and cleared of stones. Turf cutting
begins.
May day is a day for the housewife to demonstrate her skill at making the
food last over the Winter and Spring. A formal meal was made with the good
food which was left.
May Day was also a day for watching the weather which will help predict the
end of frost and success for the summer months. One should not dig whitewash
or bathe or sail on May Day.
Summer was welcomed in many ways: A May bush ws set up,flowers (especially
yellow ones) were gathered into small bouquets which were hung up in the
house-these must be picked before dawn of May Day. Horses bridles were also
decorated with flowers. Generally flowers were tied to everything-cows,
churns etc... as protective elements. In some areas branches of newly leafed
trees were collected. The Sycamore being a favorite "May bough" in Cork.
While the flowers were beautiful the main reason for their cutting and
distribution was to ward off evil and bring good. The May Bush was extremely
important in this regard in many parts. It was set up by the family on May
Eve in front of the house door and was decorated carefuly with flowers and
the colored egg shells carefully saved since Easter. Ribbons were also aded
together with bits of candles. These candles were lit and a dance was held
in honor of the Blessed Virgin Maryat dusk at May day eve.Children going
door to door would chant:
"Long life and a pretty wife, and a candle for the May bush"
-of course they were looking for money as well!
Bonfires were also lit and sports competitions lead to the worst fighting of
the year. May bushes became in some areas May poles. Stealing the bushes
also was a source of great fighting and led to some famous rhymes:
The custom of young newly married couples giving new and decorated hurling
balls:"May Balls" to the young men of the town also lead to great
festivities and often violence as drink money was also given out with the
balls.
Of many charms and omens for May Day the collection of May dew was the most
well known. This was carefully decanted and collected to use as a medicine
and for beauty. The man who washed his hands in the May dew would be good
with knots and nets. There are many things you should not do on May day one
of which is to pick up anything left in the roadway.Back to Seasons
1.Clean house thoroughly Inside and out-whitewash applied.
2.Obtain New clothes.
3.Good Friday-do no work on the land just in the house.
4.Fast More than is Required on Good Friday.
5.Good Friday- Plant a small amount of crop seed to bring blessing on it
all.
6.Shed no blood on Good Friday,work no wood,hammer no nail .
7.Maintain quiet on good Friday from Noon till three P.M.
8.Visit church-take off shoes-good Friday.Visit holy wells and graveyards.
9.Do not fish with nets or lines on Good Friday no fishing boat puts out to
sea alternatively gather bia tragha-shore food-seaweed and shellfish for the
Main meal.
10.Cut your hair on good Friday to prevent headaches in the year to
come-trim finger and toe nails.
11.Water from the holy well will have curative properties on Good Friday.
12.A child born on Good Friday and baptized on Easter Sunday had gift of
healing. (if a boy he should go into the ministry) die on good Friday go
right the heaven.
13.Eggs laid on Good Friday-Mark with cross and each eat one on Easter
Sunday.Eggs Hatching on that day will produce healthy chicks.
1.Have Holy water blessed.
2.Drink three sips of holy water each for health.Sprinkle on everything for
good luck.
3.Bring cinders from the Paschal fire to be blessed.
1. Butchers have mock funeral for a herring symbolizing end to
abstinence.-whip the herring,have a procession involving the herring-
2. Go to church and then herring procession.
3. Go up at sunrise to view the sun dancing with joy.
4, View the reflection of the sun in a pail of water and move it so the sun
appears to dance.
5. Do something with eggs.Give them,color them
6.Have a Cludog or cluideog ritual-children collect and cook eggs and other
food in a structure which they make on the edge of the farm-roasted eggs.
7.Brightly dressed Tobies go from place to place to demand the eggs of
Easter Singing, dancing dressed in bright colored rags.
8.Keep shells of Easter eggs for the May bush. 9.Roll eggs to race
them.-may be Presbyterian custom.
10.Have feast on Easter-Kill a cow if you can-
11.Take down the Spoilin meith na hlnide-little piece of meat pinned up at
lent and burn it giving house a rich smell
12.Have a a Cake Dance. Cake being the prize for best dancer.Easter cake
dance-a pruthog
13.Go to a "Sunday's" well-have a bonfire.
In Irish Gaelic:
L� Fh�ile P�draig (LAW AY-luh PAW-rihg) = St. Patrick's Day
Traditional customs for the proper celebration of the day-and Yes we know
that Ireland has tried its best to discard its historic culture in favor of
progress,industrialization and American commercialism-but customs are
important to give meaning to life and joy to the soul so here they are:
1.Wear an emblem in honor of the saint-a custom which dates from as early as
1681-and the account of Thomas Dinely. Generally a green ribbon the shamrock
or a saint patricks cross(circle or square of paper decorated with green
ribbon and bits of priests vestments by girls and small children-for boys a
paper cross in the style of the Celtic illuminations carefully decorated)
2. Go to work and demand the "Patrick's Groat" take leave of your
capitalistic master and go to town and spend it all.(very few of the zealous
should be found sober at night account(Dinely 1681!). 3.Men should make a
cross of a twig of wild sallow and pin it to the thatch inside the house or
above the door.
4.You may also wear a harp shaped badge
5.Wear the "Trifolium repens"-white clover (Identified as such by Caleb
Threlkeld in 1727)
6.After church go to the pub to drink the "pota Pa/draig"-St. Patricks pot.
Many acts of devotion should be followed by an equal number of acts of
copious libation...
7.Say this quaint line when doing so:
Ordain a Statute to be Drunk
(Farewell 1689)
8.Actually it is doubtful if anyone knows what a shamrock is(Early 20th
century-Nathaniel Colgan asked around Ireland and found that it could
be-Trifolium repens,(white clover), Folium minus-(leser trefoil),Trifolium
pratense(purple clover),Medicagio Lupulina(Black Medick) So take your pick!
9.Give treats and gifts to friends and children.
10.Put shamrock which has been worn on the day into the last glass of
drink-then toast to the health of all and pick the wet drowned shamrock out
of the glass and toss it over the left shoulder.
11.Using a burnt stick make a cross on the sleeve of each member of the
household
12.You have to eat meat and you do not need any special dispensation to do
so. Jocelin notes that as early as 1100 AD people ate meat in Lent due to an
account of St.Patrick doing so and then being forgiven the meat turning to
fish in the boiling water.
17.You must begin your planting soon after St. Patrick's day-(peas are best
planted on the day. (Source-Kevin Danaher- The Year in Ireland Mercier Press
Cork,1972)
The prayer used by St. Patrick to protect his followers from the King-He
prayed and the whole group changed into deer and ran past the warriors to
the hall of the king where he successfully did a battle of words with the
Druids.
I bind me to-day
Christ near
Christ in the left and the right
(trans. Sigerson)
Her day: February 1 First Day of Spring -New Year's day for the Farmers
1. A day to look for weather signs-a hedgehog a good weather sign if he
stays out of his burrow.
2. Do only essential work on the day and go to the local shrine to pray.
3. Take stock of the household supplies-will it last till harvest?
4. Clean the house.
5. Make a special dinner for St. Brighids Eve.
6. Make a Bairin-breac-yeast cake with fruit (aka barm brack) for the eve
and invite the neighbors in.
7. Make fresh butter - Brigid is closely associated with the dairy.
8. A day for the wealthy to give food to the poor.
9. St. Brigid traveled the countryside, blessing households, with her white
red-eared cow.
10. You need to show her welcome: place bread and fresh butter on the
window sill outside, also put out a sheaf of corn for the cow, put out
rushes for her to kneel on to bless the household, set the table in the
kitchen on the eve.
11. Make the cros Bride or bogha Bride (St. Brigids Cross). These crosses
are made of rushes-but vary in materials and somewhat in design from region
to region (main page for cross link).
12.The cross should be hung in the thatch roof of the house or above the
door, and if you dont have a roof-apartment-on the inside of the front door.
13. Cross material should be blessed.Crosses are left in place for a full
year to be renewed on the day.
14. A large oat bread cake, a Strone,Strohn, or Brigid's Bread (See main
page food links) in the shape of a wheat sheaf or cross is made, blessed by
the priest and eaten.
15. Often a door ceremony is held with a person, usually the eldest
daughter, representing the saint knocking and asking to be let in. She
says - Go on your knees, open your eyes, and let Brighid in. Answered by
from within: Greeting,greeting to the noble woman.
16.After perhaps Mary, Brigid is the most common name for girls in
Ireland - it is shortened to Bridie (pronounced bri dee). (Bride in English
however comes from the German; although many think otherwise, the linguists
insist on a German root.)
17. On the eve the Bridie Boys go out with an effigy of the saint called
the Brideog - a doll dressed in white. They pick up the offerings of bread
and of butter left out. (In some areas the Brideog was the most pure girl of
the village.)
18. A piece of white cloth is hung outside the front door.
19.Those coming around would say something like this: Something for poor
Biddy!
or Here is Briget dressed in white
20. A silk ribbon is left out for the Saint to bless; it is used to cure
illness. It is called the ribin Brighid - St.Brigids Ribbon. 21. To say over
the cross:
Brighids Girdle is my girdle,
22.The leftover materials from the cross were used to bless the animals as
bedding and feed.
23. On St Brigids day the lark was a good omen of Spring.
24. The dandelion is spoken of as Brigids Flower.
25. Hoar frost(thick frost) gathered specially on the day can be used to
cure headache.
26. There are many wells dedicated to the saint from which water is drawn
and used for blessings on the day.
27. Brigid is famous for brewing ale and for distributing it -so ale is a
part of the celebration
28.The farm animals should be especially well taken care of on the day.
1. Prepare spiritually. From the beginning of advent add prayers to usual
devotions.
2. Children should say additional Paters and Aves and to count them (counts
of 5,000 are cited)
3. Be especially sure to be "a hardy annual" and be sure to go to church.
4. Many days before the festival clean house and farmyard thoroughly.
5. Men clean outbuildings and yard entrances passageways and surroundings.
White-wash all buildings inside and out.
5. Women sweep,wash and clean the house.
6. Do major laundering- include everything.
7. Clean tables and chairs with sand. Clean pots and pans.
8. Children survey the countryside for holly, ivy, bay and other evergreens
for later cutting.
9. Holly with berries is especially prized. Make Ivy garlands. Whiten ivy
berries with whiting or starch.
10. Cut colored paper scraps into adornment and use needle and thread to
string loose holly onto linen in patterns or seasonal mottoes.
11. Purchase decorations from a peddler or traveling person.
12. Make a small cross of holly sprigs or crossed pieces of wood.
13. Where mistletoe is found you can decorate with it and the girl kissed
under it receives a gift from the boy.
14. Just before Christmas go to the town to "bring home the Christmas"- go to
the Christmas market for this purpose (the Margadh M/or or big market).
15. Receive a gift from a shopkeeper- a "Christmas box".
16. Country country people give produce from the farm to townspeople.
17. Town Folks give town goods to country folks.
18. Prosperous farmers give portions of a slaughtered animal and other
donations of food to their friends,poor and workpeople.
19. Make poitin. Make sure you have at least a quart available.
20. Lay in a good supply of fuel for heating.
21. Obtain a special log- bogdeal, the "bloc na Nollag".
22. Clean the Chimney using a prickly bush pulled up and down.
23. Purchase a chance on a mutton.
24. Hold a "join". Every man contributing a small sum-toward liquid
refreshments and have a pleasant evening of talk,song, and storytelling.
1. Return home for Christmas.-to the parents house on Christmas eve.
2. Finish work by midday on the Eve and get home before night-fall.
3. Bring presents to father and mother and to younger brothers and sisters.
4. Send an "American Letter" to your family in Ireland containing cash.
5. Finish the last preparations- the final sweeping and cleaning and
preparations from festive food.
6. Prepare the most elaborate dinner of the year for Christmas.
7. Roast of Boiled beef- the most popular dish:spiced beef.
8. Boiled Ox head was the favorite dish in Armagh,Tyrone, Monaghan and other
places in the north.
9. Wealthy farmers of Leinster and Munster prepare fowl: chicken or goose,
bacon and mutton,cakes, puddings, and pies.
10. Prepare puddings on Christmas Eve for final cooking on Christmas Day.
11. Make Cutlin pudding in County Wexford.- a porridge of wheaten meal and
sugar dried fruits and spices are added. Make this into a ball as big or
bigger than a football and wrap it for boiling.
12. Make a Christmas pie in the shape of cradle decorated with strips of
pastry to represent the manger in Donegal.
13. Light Christmas candles at night on Christmas eve. With a prayer.
14. Place large candles into sconces made from a turnip or piggin filled
with bran or flour. One for house holder , one for wife and one each for the
grandparents. Little colored candles for the children .
15. Decorate all candles with holly.
16. Let candles burn all night extinguishing them just before the first
mass.
17. One big candle: coinneal M/or na Nollag can be displayed.
18. Candles are lighted at 6 0'clock and the angelus is said.
19. Light three candles in honor of the Holy Family-or a three branched
candle.
20. Have the youngest person light the principal candle.
21. If the principal candle goes out for some reason it is a bad
omen.-possibly of the death of the head of he household.
22. Candles are lighted to show the way to Joseph and Mary.
23. Leave doors open on Christmas eve.
24. Have a candle in every window.
25. Leave the table set for three persons.
26. Leave a bowl of water out to be blessed by the travellers-this water
will be used for cures.
27. Put on a good fire before bed.
28.Sweep the floor.
29. Put bread on the table.
31. Take the children to a high place to show them all the candles.
32. Observe Christmas Eve as a fast day. If you eat it should be
stockfish-hake,cod or ling with white sauce and potatoes.
33. End fast after candles are lit well before midnight.
34. Cut the Christmas cake and make tea,punch and other beverages.
35. Give sweets and apples to the children.
36. Gather the family around the fire.
37. Remind children that an angel stood on every spike of holly leaves this
night and all nights.
38. No prayer will be unanswered on Christmas eve.
39. If you die on Christmas Eve you will go right into heaven.
40. Place a small wreath of holly yew or other evergreens on family graves
especially on the grave of one who had just died.
41. Fire a salute from a shotgun at noon on Christmas Eve. A "grussenschuss".
42. At midnight leave the cows and donkeys to kneel in adoration of the
Christ.
43. Feed animals sheaf corn or branmash.
44. Decorate byre and stable with evergreens and provide a special lantern
there.
45. Children tie sprigs of holly on cow's horns.
46. The cock will crow on unusual times -to hear him crow at midnight will
be a good omen.
47. Cold weather with frost or snow will indicate a mild spring with absence
of illness.
48. A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard.
49. When it snowed on Christmas Eve. Geese were being plucked in heaven.
50. A new moon on Christmas Eve was very lucky.
1.Spend it at home.
2.Have a quiet Christmas.
3.Stay away from the homes of others.
4.Go to church-early mass if possible-before dawn.
5.Take a wisp of straw from the crib to bring luck and blessing.
6.Women cook Christmas dinner after church.
7.Men and boys remain outside out of the way busy with sport-hurling-a big
village match. The match can be begun at the church gate -bring hurleys to
church.
8.Use a specially made hurling ball with a small tin box of loose shot
inside for a louder sound.
9.Hunt hares with greyhounds or harriers.
10.Have a shooting match.
11.Drink three sips of salted water before dinner for good health.
12.Sit around the fire after dinner with song and story.
13.Listen for a cricket on the hob and have a sign of good fortune.
14. In the North East of Ireland some Scottish Puritans do not celebrate
Christmas.
15.Listen to the waits called "good morrow,good morrow,good morrow,past
twelve o'clock;a fine frosty morning" view the performances and reward the
performers.
16.Go to a hill and blow a loud salute for Christmas Morning using cows
horns.
17. Sing carols.
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