School: Ráth gCaola (B.) (roll number 1282)

Location:
Rathkeale, Co. Limerick
Teacher:
Seán Ó Coindealbháin
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0500, Page 663

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0500, Page 663

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Ráth gCaola (B.)
  2. XML Page 663
  3. XML “May Eve Customs”
  4. XML “May Eve Customs”

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

  1. On May Eve people used to decorate their houses with slanders. The children used to fight with slanders. it was said that if you were not hit with a slander on May Eve the fairies would take you. It is also said that if you picked flowers on May Eve that the fairies would take you.
    Another custom is spreading Holy water on the farm so that the fairies would not take the grass.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. activities
      1. economic activities
        1. agriculture (~2,659)
    2. events
      1. events (by time of year) (~11,476)
        1. May (~639)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Brian Connellan
    Gender
    Male
  2. Farmers always sprinkle Holy Water (May water) on their cattle on this evening to protect them against the evil spirits. if this is not done the milk the following morning has always been found useless for churing, that day.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.