maybe, at Christmas & Easter & round Michaelmas & St Martin's Day. Many used to have Tadhg a' Germhridh in every home that time. The man of the house used to get his sally rods & slip them - No - he didn't peel 'em - He'd made a cross out of them with the bark out & make 3 crosses on each beam with black thread. Then he'd get a good tough piece of a sgeoch & point it. He'd run the point through the middle of the cross & put a piece of meat on top of it. That was put up in the thatch then & left there until it was needed.
"Needed? What do you mean?"
"There was a cure in th meath. If the ass had gauls or broken [?] it was the grandest thing in the world to heal them or it the cow got a [?] or had a stiff 'elder" all you had to do was to pas sthe bit of meat to it & it would be as right as [?] in "the morning". Or if a person had oighean on the back of his hands, or any sore or bléin, Tadhg a; Geimhridh ;ud cure them.
Poor people wd. often say, when the times were bad victuals scarce: We had Tadhg a Geimhridh in the house all the winter*
* cf. "July an chabáiste", "Conncubhg mor sa Chúmne"