Richard Warburton, 1818; ‘It is however at the fair of Donnybrook, that the natural humour and peculiar character of the lower classes of the metropolis are best seen. Donnybrook is a pleasant village contiguous to the south suburbs of the city.
It has a green or common, on which the fair is held, in the month of August. It is regularly proclaimed, and is attended by police officers, whose interposition is indispensable to preserve the peace. The fair, which is held for the sale of horses and black cattle, lasts a week, during which time every mode of amusement and gymnastic exercise peculiar to the Irish is practised, each day concluding with a pitched battle, in which much blood is spilled, and many heads broken, but rarely and life lost.
The Green is covered with tents, and filled with pipers, fiddlers, and dancers; and of late years has been introduced mimes, mountebanks, shows of wild beasts, and all these spectacles, but on a much more limited scale, which are to be found at Bartholomew fair.
During the continuance of this fair, Harcourt-street, and the other avenues leading to it, present extraordinary spectacles, particularly in the evenings. Almost all the carriages, which plied at other ends of the town now assemble here, and while they go to and from the fair they are crowded at all hours with company. The din and tumult of the roads on these occasions is inconceivable, particularly during the stillness of night; form the vociferation, laughter and fighting of these turbulent cargoes, a noise ascends which is heard for several miles in all directions.
The attachment of the populace to this amusement is so great, that the Lord Mayor finds it necessary to proceed there in person at the expiration of the limited time, and, striking the tents, compel the people to go home.’
History of Dublin
Donnybrook Fair traditionally ran for a week, from the 26 August each year, however the fair could, and often did, run for a fortnight. The fair was held annually on that date for seven hundred years, from the middle of the thirteenth century and continuing until the 1850’s. Various attempts, which eventually found success, were made by the Dublin authorities to put an end to the drunken debauched riots that invariably accompanied, and often overshadowed the intended trade of black cattle and horses at Donnybrook Fair.
Although the Fair at Donnybrook has not been held in over a century and half the fair’s reputation has been kept alive up till today through songs, poems and stories; the Dublin poet Austin Clarke recorded the following verse poem in his second autobiography, A Penny in the Clouds, over a century after the last fair in 1962;
‘Tis there are dogs dancing and wild beasts a-prancing.
With neat bits of painting in red, yellow and gold,
Toss-players and scramblers, and showmen and gamblers,
Pickpockets in plenty, both young and old.
There are brewers, and bakers, and jolly shoemakers,
with butchers and porters, and men that cut hair;
There are mountebanks grining,
while others are singing
To keep the honours of Donnybrook Fair.’
Sources
Clarke, Austin. A Penny in the Clouds: More Memories of Ireland and England. 1968.
Gordon W. Foksayeth, 1911; ‘In the parish of Modeligo, on the right bank of the Finisk, there may be found a remarkable specimen of the many holy wells of Ireland.
The name “well” is really deceptive : for the water is merely rainwater, and does not derive its existence from any spring, but is simply contained in a bath-shaped receptacle in a piece of limestone jutting up from the surface of the land. The dimensions of the well are about 4 feet long, by 3 feet broad, and 2 feet deep. I have called it bath-shaped, as it is an oval in appearance, and seems to be an unusually large bullaun, or a natural cavity in the rock. There is generally about six inches of water in it, and a legend asserts the existence of an inscribed cross and an inscription on the bottom. I have seen the cross myself, but it seems to be merely an accidental mark on the stone.
On the 14th day of August, the water is removed from the basin, and a fresh supply put in, by a man who lives close by; and the following day a pattern used to take place in the olden times. People may still be seen to congregate on the aforesaid date, and they invariably hang mementoes, in the shape of rags or other objects, on the ancient hawthorn bush that grows beside the well.
Tradition asserts that this well formerly existed some distance from its present position, and that a trooper of Cromwell’s led his blind horse, in mockery, around it, in order to find out and test the miraculous powers of the place. The horse was cured, but the soldier became blind, and the following day the well had taken up its present position. The place is known to the natives as the tobar beannuighte, and is marked on the 0. S. as ” Lady Well.”‘.
Text and photograph taken from the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquities Ireland, 1911
Puck Fair Killorglin, circa 1900 – From the National Library of Ireland’s Photographic Collection
John M. Synge, circa 1900;
‘The greatest event in West Kerry is the horse-fair known as Puck Fair, which is held in August.
If one asks anyone, many miles east or west of Killorglin, when he reaped his oats or sold his pigs or heifers, he will tell you it was four or five weeks, or whatever it may be, before or after Puck.
On the main roads, for many days past, I have been falling in with tramps and trick characters of all kinds, sometimes single and sometimes in parties of four or five, and as I am on the roads a great deal I have met the same persons several days in succession – one day perhaps at Ballinskelligs, the next day at Feakle Callaigh and the third in the outskirts of Killorglin.
Yesterday cavalcades of every sort were passing from the west with droves of horses, mares, jennets, foals and asses, with their owners going after them in flat or railed carts or riding on ponies.
The men of this house – they are going to buy a horse – went to the fair last night, and I followed at an early hour in the morning. As I came near Killorglin the road was much blocked by the latest sellers pushing eagerly forward, and early purchasers who were anxiously leading off their young horses before the roads became dangerous from the crush of drunken drivers and riders.
Just outside the town, near the public house, blind beggars were kneeling on the pathway, praying with almost Oriental volubility for the souls of anyone who would throw them a coin.
“Mary the Holy Immaculate Mother of Jesus Christ,” said one of them, “intercede for you in the hour of need. Relieve a poor blind creature, and may Jesus Christ relieve yourselves in the hour of death. May He have mercy, I’m saying, on your brothers and fathers and sisters for evermore.”
Further on stalls were set out with cheap cakes and refreshments, and one could see that many houses had been arranged to supply the crowds who had come in. Then I came to the principal road that goes around the fair-green, where there was a great concourse of horses, trotting, walking and galloping; most of them were of the cheaper class of animals, and were selling, apparently to the people’s satisfaction, at prices that reminded one of the time when fresh meat was sold for three pence a pound.
At the further end of the green there were one or two rough shooting galleries and a number of women – not very rigid, one could see – selling, or appearing to sell, all kinds of trifles: a set that came in, I am told, from towns not far away. At the end of the green I turned past the chapel, where a little crowd had just carried in a man who had been killed or badly wounded by a fall from a horse, and went down to the bridge of the river and then back again into the main slope of the town. Here there were a number of people who had come in for amusement only, and were walking up and down, looking at each other – a crowd is as exciting as champagne to these lonely people, who live in long glens among the mountains – and meeting with cousins and friends.
Then, in a three-cornered space in the middle of the town, I came on Puck himself, a magnificent he-goat (Irish puc), raised on a platform twenty feet high, and held by a chain from each horn, with his face down the road. He is kept in position, with a few cabbages to feed on, for three days, so that he may preside over the pig-fair, the horse-fair and the day of winding up.’
In Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara. 1911.
Puck Fair is held annually for three days from the 10th of August in the West Kerry town of Killorglin. Each of the three days received its own name, therefore; the 10th August is ‘Gathering Day’, the 11th is ‘Fair Day’, and the 12th ‘Scattering Day’. Puck Fair is reputedly the most ancient fair still held in Ireland. The fair was granted an official licence by James I in 1603, but the fair was held for centuries prior this licence being granted.
Mananaan MacLir, 1897; ‘The 3rd of August* is “St Molua’s Day” in East Limerick, and at this date a large “patron” is still held at Tobar Molua, ie., “St Molua’s Well,” a rural district (in the townland of Balline and parish of Emly-Grenane), about seven miles east of Killmallock, and near Clareen cross-roads.
Arrived there the pilgrim turns up a bye-road or lane leading to St Molua’s grave-yard, where an abbey formerly stood, portions of the wall of which (of cyclopean masonry) may still be seen incorporated in the boundary wall of the graveyard, which was sometime since erected by the Kilmallock Poor Law Board, acting as a sanitary authority. Proceeding past the grave-yard a little farther east we come on “St Molua’s Well,” situate nearly mid-way in a large green field, and without a shrub or bush of any kind, a very unusual circumstance in connection with such shrines.
The manner of “paying rounds” here is peculiar. The devotion consists in first reciting a rosary of six Paters, sixty Aves, and six Glorias, while travelling over a well-beaten circular path around the holy well, after which another rosary of five Paters, sixty Aves, and five Glorias is recited while kneeling at the well’s brink. The water is then drank of and some taken away in bottles or jars for consumption in the houses of the pilgrims. It is looked on as a good omen if the pilgrims behold the fresh water stickle-back in the well – here known as “St Molua’s trout” – while performing their devotions. To have the “rounds” prove efficacious it is locally considered that they must be performed on three consecutive Saturdays, and even then, before sunrise. As the district is a rural one, far from a town, or even village, this last stipulation is not easily accomplished. From “St Molua’s Day” (August 3) to the 15th, however, those restrictions are not in force, and “rounds” may be performed at any time on those privileged days.
St Molua’s Well is now principally resorted to for the cure of ague (malaria or another illness involving fever and shivering) and kindred complaints, and such is the belief in the efficacy if this illness that the writer has been informed of many Irish -Americans who (afflicted with ague in the land of their adoption) who have written home to their kindred in the old land to visit St Molua’s Well on their behalf, and thus, by deputy, at the saint’s shrine, ask his intercession for them. We may add, we were informed that this pilgrimage was very often efficacious.’
Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.
Illustration by an unidentified artist.
* Most sources maintain that Saint Molua’s Day is the 4th of August.
As one of the four quarter days of the Irish year the festival of Lughnasa is traditionally observed on or near the first of August and welcomes the beginning of the harvest season, and the end of the hungry days of July which many of our ancestors endured as they awaited the coming of harvest for the ripening of their crops. The bright weather, long days, and abundant harvests, with the stores of fruits, vegetables and grains ready to be picked, reaped or dug, meant that the celebrations of Lughnasa are traditionally held outdoor at both populous and remote locations, varying from observations on Ireland’s three other quarter days Samhain, Imbolc, and Bealtaine, as the traditions and observations carried out during these festivals tend to be centred around the home.
In the Irish language the month of August is known as Lughnasa after the Tuatha De Danann god Lugh – with the literal meaning of Lughnasa being ‘Lugh’s gathering.’ Ireland’s ancient texts credit Lugh as the creator rather than the inspiration of the festival – that particular honour having been generally given to his deceased foster-mother Tailtiu, for whom the festival was named the Fair of Tailteann [Fair of Telltown]. The fair was held on the banks of the River Blackwater between towns of Kells and Navan in County Meath over a number of weeks which culminated on the first day of August.* The Fair of Tailteann is depicted as a sort of Irish Olympic Games, where many partook in sport and competitions, including chariot racing, archery, fidchel (an Irish version of chess), but the fair was also a gathering for contracting marriages, leases, and sales of livestock for the coming year. Some sources suggest that marriages at Tailteann were of a temporary nature and could be annulled at the festival the following year.
Echoes of the ancient festival of Lughnasa have continued into our own times and traditions that reflect the cultural and societal changes over thousands of years. However, Lugh’s association with the festival is now noticeable more through the influence of his name rather than his deeds. Tales from Irish folk tradition has largely displaced Lugh’s participation in our seasonal harvest legends. The Irish folklorist Máire MacNeill remarked in her landmark book The Festival of Lughnasa that ‘the dominant theme of the festival legends was a struggle between two persons, who must originally have been gods, and that the two main actors are usually named Crom Dubh~ and Saint Patrick. One of those, we may presume, has taken the part of Lugh.’ She goes on to conclude that ‘Lugh would certainly have had the role of victor, as Saint Patrick has.’ An explanation of the Irish deity Crom Dubh should probably be given at this juncture. Crom Dubh is often said by Irish folklorist to be related to the fertility god Crom Cruach. As is often the case with Irish deities, clues to their identity can be discovered from the descriptiveness of their names; the Irish folklorist Dáithí Ó hÓgain explained that the name Crom Dubh ‘has been taken to mean ‘black stoop’’, while speculating that the name ‘may have actually signified ‘dark croucher’, an image of the devil.’ This battle between Patrick and Crom Dubh in these terms can be seen to represent a battle between good and evil, and perhaps, plentifulness and starvation. In many of these legends Saint Patrick invariably gets the better of Crom Dubh in what could be described as a contest of trickery, while in other legends Crom Dubh’s soul is saved by the weight of his good deeds.
Legends of Crom Dubh’s importance and relevance to the season have survived in the Irish imagination for many centuries and Crom Dubh is often perceived as a provider. In 1870, for example, Canon John O’Hanlon made the following remark on the persistence of worshiping Crom Dubh; noting that in west County Clare at Tullagh na Greine [Hill of the Sun] near Slieve Callan ‘the people are said to have sacrificed to their tutelary divinity on the 1st of August, during the Pagan period; and such traditions still survive in their neighbourhood.’ Devotion to the god was also noted by the Rev. Michael P. Mahon half a century later in his 1919 volume Ireland’s Fairy Lore, where he remarked that ‘It is most interesting to hear them call the first Sunday in August domnac Cruim Duib, or Cromm Dubh’s Sunday, as if he were one of the saints of the Calendar.’ However, Saint Patrick’s victory over Crom Dubh can be seen through Ireland’s many religious traditions that continue to be celebrated on or near the first of August, and particularly by Ireland’s largest gathering at the beginning of the season which sees tens of thousands of people undertake pilgrimages to Croagh Patrick on the last Sunday of July each year.
For the past few centuries the date upon which Lughnasa has been observed has varied between one region or another. The first of August is often, though not always, displaced with the traditional and still ancient mass gatherings that occur annually in remote areas on the last Sunday of July or the first Sunday of August. In a similar fashion, though through civic law rather than religious tradition, fairs like Puck Fair in Killorglin, County Kerry, and the Fair at Greencastle, County Down, are held on the traditional date according to the Julian Calendar – and so commence between the tenth and twelfth of August each year. ^ As the weather is generally better at this time of year these remote gatherings and urban markets have always served as opportunities for those who attend to compete in sports and to mix with the opposite sex.
Since the festival that marks the beginning of the harvest season and follows on from hungry July it is hardly surprising that some found great difficulty in resisting the temptation to harvest their crops before the first of August. Ireland’s changing from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 made the first of August come eleven days earlier in the season than it previously did. Some farmers attempted to keep to the older calendar by holding off beginning to harvest their crops until the eleventh of August, while others who found that their crops were not ready would ritually dig up a sample of their crops the first of the August. This tradition was still observed in County Donegal at the end of the nineteenth century as Hugh Dorian describes in the following extract from his 1889 biography The Outer Edge of Ulster ‘everyone who has a crop to fasten on makes it a point to open the new clay or as they say “bleed the crop” on the first day of August. To fulfil the observance of digging on the first of the month, some would do so at a loss to the green crop, it not being in perfection, but then they withdraw hands for some days till nearer ripe.’ As with crops Lughnasa was a time when rites were performed to secure the protection of livestock. Sir Henry Piers noted in 1682 that on the first Sunday of August it was at one time customary for local farmers in County Westmeath to ‘drive their cattle into some pool or river, and therein swim them’, explaining that by doing ‘this they observe as inviolable as if it were a point of religion, for they think no beast will live the whole year thro’ unless they be thus drenched.’
*In the 1920s the, above mentioned, Tailtain games were briefly revived by the newly established Irish Free State.
^ The introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 displaced and created alternative festivals – which in some cases eclipsed the original date, but just as often continued on the old date with shared and their own distinct activities and observances.
Sources
Dorian, Hugh. The Outer Edge of Ulster: A Memoir of Social Life in Nineteenth-Century Donegal. Edited by Breandán Mac Suibhne & David Dickson. Dublin, 2000.
Ledwidge, Francis E. Legends and stories of the Boyneside. 1913
Mahon, Michael P., Rev. Ireland’s Fairy Lore. Boston, 1919.
McGlinchey, Charles. The Last of the Name. Edited by Brian Friel. Belfast, 1986.
MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the Beginning of Harvest. Dublin, 1962-2008.
O’Hanlon, John (Lageniensis). Irish Folk Lore: Traditions and Superstitions of the Country; with Humorous Tales. London, 1870.
Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend & Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition. London 1990.
Otway, Caesar. A Tour of Connaught. Dublin, 1839.
Piers, Sir Henry, A Chorographical Description of the County of West-Meath, A.D. 1682
Painting is ‘The Potato Gathers in the West’, 1902, by Charles McIvor Grierson, available to view at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.
Illustration is Saint Patrick and Crom Cruaich by L.D. Symingtom, 1907.
thefadingyear 