School: Howth (B.)
- Location:
- Howth, Co. Dublin
- Teacher: E. J. Crowley
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0792, Page 121
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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
- The 6th day of January is often called Little Christmas Day, and in some places certain old customs are often renewed. Mr Crowley's father told him of a very old custom carried out in County Cork, more than eighty years ago. Here it is -
A very large home-made wheaten cake, with fruit on it, was baked and ready for that night and just before midnight, the whole family went outside the front door, which was then shut and father took the cake in his two hands and tapped it against the door three times, saying aloud - hunger, hunger, hunger, keep out for the year.
Then all went inside and upon the shut door, the same thing was done.
Then the cake was cut and each got a piece, after which the Rosary was said and all went to bed.
- Collector
- Rory Mc Loughlin
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 14
