Festival Customs

transcribed at

Festival Customs  [duchas:4880882]

In most districts feasts are held in a special way. On St. Stephen's day the young boys and girls dress up in old clothes and go around from house to house looking for money. They go around in bands six or seven in each band. They dance and sing in every house. When they go in first they say 
"The wren the wren the king of all birds St. Stephen's day was caught in the furze up the kettle and down with the pan a penny or twopence to bury the wren".
In the evening they divide it equally among themselves. St. Patrick's day  the people go to drown the shamrock. On Easter Sunday the people eat plenty of eggs. On St. Brigid's day the young people dress up in old clothes and go around from house to house gathering money, flour, sugar, and tea and they hold a feast on some other night.
On Mayday if you are looking towards a graveyard when you hear the cuckoo

Festival Customs  [duchas:4880883]

you are going to die in that year. On Good Friday the people drink tea without milk or sugar and eat dry bread. On Easter Sunday the eat plenty of eggs. On St. Martin's day the people kill a goose or a cock and spill the blood in the four corners of the house. On Halloween the people dive for money in a tub of water and they hang an apple from the roof. On twelvth night the people light twelve candles or rushes and whose ever candle dies first that person will die first in the house.