School: Mullagh (B)
- Location:
- Mullagh, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: James Drury
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1003, Page 119
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Mullagh (B)
- XML Page 119
- XML “Games at Wakes”
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
- (continued from previous page)Another game at wakes was played as follows.
A number of 10 to 15 young fellows sit on the floor in a circle. They sit close together with their knees raised and their feet on the ground.
A leathern strap is passed from one to another under the arch formed by the raised knees and in this hidden from view.
One man stands in the centre of the ring where he remains until he finds somebody in possession of the strap. During his efforts to do so he is repeatedly struck with the strap from behind. Sometimes a bit of malice is shown to an individual and received severe punishment. In this locality the game was called "Hurra-burra". In other districts it was called "Ratka".
As those games led generally to a display of temped and caused quarrelling they were gradually stamped out.
The remains of the dead person are now conveyed to the church where they remain until the funeral.
- Collector
- J. Drury
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 62
- Occupation
- Múinteoir
