School: Cill Tártáin
- Location:
- Kiltartan, Co. Galway
- Teacher: Mícheál Ó Tuathaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0047, Page 0049
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- XML School: Cill Tártáin
- XML Page 0049
- XML “Festival Customs - May Day”
- XML “Festival Customs - St Stephen's Day”
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- Transcription guide »
You are not logged in, but you are welcome to contribute a transcription anonymously. In this case, your IP address will be stored in the interest of quality control.By clicking the save button you agree that your contribution will be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License and that a link to dúchas.ie is sufficient as attribution. - About three weeks before Christmas comes, a crowd of boys gather together every Sunday and go through the country killing birds, and searching for the wren especially. She is so small that it is hard to get her. When they have killed a number of birds, they bury them until St. Stephen's Day.
On this day they get up early. They dress themselves up as "mummers". Some dress as police and others as old women. They blacken their faces and disguise themselves. Then they get a brush and tie the birds to it and go around playing musical instruments and singing the wren song, which goes as follows.
"The wren the wren the king of all birds, St Stephen's day was caught in the furze.
Up with the kettle; down with the pan. A penny or two pence to bury the wren."(continues on next page)
