School: Tara Hill (roll number 13689)

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1. Old Customs, Beliefs, Practices

   

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   Death

   It is wrong to crowd around a dying person. If his ailment be bad it will do no good to yourself and anyway room should be given to the soul to leave the body. The candle, blessed, is held in the right hand on which the habit also hangs.

   Holy water is sprinkled from the soul departing out to the yard.

   While the corpse is being 'waked' the soul has the power to return and visit the body as often as it likes.

   The wake is carried on for two whole nights. If the person dies before 12 midnight that will count as one night. The men folk usually sit in the kitchen talking + smoking.
   The women proceed to the wake - room, on bended knees pray for the repose of the soul. The men never kneel down. As each man comes to the kitchen door he bares his head + says a prayer standing.

   While the wake is in progress the main entrance always remains open, the blinds are down on the windows and candles only, blessed or ordinary, are used for lighting the wake room. The Rosary is said many times during the wake the local teacher often being called upon to recite it. The funeral always takes the longest journey to the graveyard and when latter is reached always the longest journey to the grave.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. genre
      1. belief (~391)
         1. folk belief (~2,535)
   2. activities
      1. social activities (~7)
         1. rites of passage (~573)
            1. death (~1,076)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Mrs Mooney

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Inch, Co. Wicklow