School: High St. (C.), Belmont
- Location:
- Belmont, Co. Offaly
- Teacher: Annie Phelan
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- XML “Festival Customs”
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- The day after Christmas day is called St Stephen's day, we call it "wren day", because on this day the boys dress up in old clothes and go from house to house gathering money. They have a small piece of holly and a few feathers stuck in it to pretend it is a wren.
Some of the boys dance and some play music, when they have finished they ask for money. Then they say the rhyme.
"The wren, the wren the king of all birds.
St Stephen's day she was caught in the furze.
Although she is little her family is great
I pray young lady give us a treat,
Up with the kettle and down with the pan;
A penny or two pence to bury the wren"
They divide the money among themselves.- Collector
- Teresa Feighery
- Gender
- Male
- Informant
- Pat Claffey
- Relation
- Relative (other than parent or grandparent)
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Lisclooney, Co. Offaly