Saint John’s Day, Toberona & the Gift of the Gab

Saint John’s Well, Toberona

John Swift, Toberona, just outside Dundalk, County Louth; ‘Up to the early part of the nineteenth century a pattern or fair annually celebrated St John’s Day, 24th June, when well known bards and other artists from Louth and the surrounding counties would gather in the vicinity of Toberona bridge, to show their talents. It is recorded that over-indulgence in alcohol and rowdying brought an end to these patterns…..

But legend had it Toberona did not require either brewed or distilled liquor to engender anything like transports of inebriation. Toberona had its well of spring water, named after Saint John, and those quaffing of its draughts, if endowed to even the slightest extent with poetic or rhetorical talent, would be inspired to speech worthy of the most gifted orator or author. They had a saying in the Temple tavern (in Dundalk): Tell it in Toberona.’

Told in Toberona, 2008

John Swift 1896-1990 was born and spent his youth in Dundalk, County Louth, before moving to Dublin in 1912.

Photograph by my dad John P Swift.

The Bonfire on Saint John’s Eve

Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, circa 1815, County Offaly; ‘It is the custom at sunset on that evening to kindle numerous immense fires throughout the country, built like our (English) bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bog-wood, and such other combustibles as they can gather.

The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bog-wood a most brilliant flame; and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon is very remarkable.

Ours was a magnificent one being provided by the landlord as a compliment to his people, and was built on the lawn, as close beside the house as safety would admit. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterize the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it, and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful, but really modest deportment of the maidens; and the vivacity of the aged people, and wild glee of the children.

The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up, and for a while they stood contemplating it, with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when bogwood is thrown on: after a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who seated on a low chair, with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest times and endless jig began.

An Irish jig is interminable, so long as the party holds together; for when one of the dancers becomes fatigued, a fresh individual is ready to step into the vacated place quick as thought; so the other does not pause, until in liked manner obliged to give place to a successor. They continue footing it, and setting to one another, occasionally moving in a figure, and changing place with extraordinary rapidity, spirit and grace. Few indeed, among even the very lowest of the most improvised class, have grown into youth without obtaining some lessons in this accomplishment from the traveling dancing-masters of their district; and certainly in the way they use it, many would be disposed to grant a dispensation to the young peasant which they would withhold from the young peer.

But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little: when the fire had burned for some hours, and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts as the “white horse;” and having been safely carried by the skill of the bearer several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming and laughing in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented all cattle. While I looked upon the now wildly-excited people with their children, and, in a figure, all their cattle, passing again and again through the fire.’

Personal Recollections, 1841

Midsummer’s Eve in Ireland

A hundred years ago, and for many centuries before, Midsummer’s Eve was observed and celebrated throughout Ireland on the 23 June, that is, on Saint John’s Eve.

The bonfire was central to the activities of Midsummer’s Eve, and those who witnessed the flames more than a lifetime ago noted that the landscape was filled with hundreds of bonfires, creating a beautiful aspect by illuminating the country as far as the eye could see. These fires were lit on elevated sites including mountain tops and hills, but also in fields, at crossroads and on the streets and in squares of towns and villages throughout the country. In Dublin bonfires were outlawed by the Lord Mayor in the 1700’s, and as a substitute, the towns’ people attached candles to trees and bushes to maintain the tradition in some form. Gradually, during the nineteenth century, coercion bills were brought in an attempt to eliminate bonfires from many towns and villages across Ireland, but these bills, while having limited in their success, failed to end the popular tradition of lighting bonfires on Saint John’s Eve. While the tradition of lighting bonfires on Saint John’s Eve has declined substantially over the past century the tradition is still observed in certain parts of the country up to the present day.

Bonfires in previous centuries were fed on materials that were readily available and  easily obtained; in some areas straw, reeds and wood were collected throughout the whole six months leading up to Midsummer’s Eve, while in other areas the bonfire was principally made of turf, with every inhabitant of the village donating their own share to feed the bonfire.  Well into the last century the ancient Irish tradition of burning animal bones continued, some believe in imitation of ancient sacrifices, in certain parts of Munster and Connaught, the addition of which created crackling noises, bright stray sparks, while, at the same time, providing the origin of their very name “bone-fire”, now generally spelled and often pronounced as bonfire.

The Midsummer’s bonfire are traditionally thought to increase fertility and produce luck, while passing through the flames of the fire was also thought to  provide protection from both the fairies and the evil eye. Many accounts relate how cattle were driven through the flames between two persons who each held lighted sheaf of straw or reeds, known as a “cleer”. Members of the household also jumped through the fire, as did lovers who held hands in the hope of encouraging their own fertility.  In County Cavan, a century ago, it was still believed that if you ate your supper by the fire on Midsummer’s Eve you would be protected from hunger throughout the coming year, while farmers often spread a sod of turf, coal, ashes, or even holy water on their crops as a method of protection from diseases including blight on Midsummer Eve.

Games and amusements were performed by many who attended, caps were often grabbed from unsuspecting heads and thrown or, at least, pretended to be thrown in the flames by the more boisterous members of the community. Spectators at the bonfires also fashioned bundles of reeds or straw which, when lit, were waved through the air, and in some places including Belmullet in County Mayo sods of lighted turf were thrown to the sky in the belief that the air would be purified through the motion of these smouldering sods. Additionally, a lighted piece of turf or a coal was often taken from the bonfire and carried home to relight the hearth in the household, which according to many accounts, was annually quenched on Midsummer’s Eve.*

*It is worth mentioning that quenching the fire on Midsummer’s Eve  was only observed in some localities, as there was a strong tradition in many parts of Ireland of keeping the hearth fire burning continuously for years, or even decades, on end.

Sources

Mac Lir, Mananaan. ‘The Folklore of Months’. Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Second series II (1896), 157, 316, 365.

Mahon, Rev. Michael P. Ireland’s Fairy Lore, Boston, 1919.

Mason, William Shaw. A Statistical Account or Parochial Survey of Ireland. Dublin, London and Edinburg, 1814-19.

O’Hanlon, Rev. John (Lageniensis). Irish Folk Lore: Traditions and Superstitions of the Country; with Humorous Tales. London, 1870.

Ó Súilleabháin, Amhlaoibh. The Diary of an Irish Countryman 1827 – 1835. Translated from the Irish by Tomás de Bhaldraithe. Cork/Dublin 1970/1979.

Piers, Sir Henry, A Chorographical Description of the County of West-Meath,  A.D. 1682

Synge, J. M. In Connemara. Dublin, 1979.

Warburton, John & others. History of the City of Dublin. Dublin, 1818.

Various articles from the Folklore Journal 1881 – 1916

The Feast Day of Saint Columbcille

F.L. Molloy, Parish of Clonmany, 1814; ‘The titular saint, or as some express it, the guardian, of this parish, is Columbkill. The 9th of June is his festival day, and is observed most ceremoniously by the old people in the parish: on that day they circumambulate certain places, repeating certain prayers, deified, as it were, for him.

They formerly drove down their cattle to the beach, on that day, and swam them in that part of the sea, into which runs the water of St Columb’s well, which is thereby made holy-water; but this custom, of late, has not been practised.

There is also a traditional story told here, that the earth of a little hillhock (tempo desh,) on the right of the road leading from the chapel to the church, formerly expelled all mice and rats, until the earth of it was vended, when its expelling powers ceased; still, however, they carry all their dead around it, as being an ancient custom.

There is a circular flat stone in the centre of the church-yard, about fourteen inches in diameter, on which are two round hollow places, which they say are prints of Saint Columb’s knees. On that day mass used to be celebrated, but of late, I believe, it has being discontinued.’

A Statistical Account or a Parochial Survey of Ireland –  William Shaw Mason.

Feast Day & Legends of Saint Kevin of Glendalough

The 3^rd June is the feast day of Saint Kevin who is one of Ireland’s most revered saints, and the former abbot of the seven churches of Glendalough in County Wicklow, where the ruins of his monastery and his grave-site stand to this day. On Saint Kevin’s Feast Day people still gather from near and far at Glendalough to complete patrons and to offer up their prayers in honour of the saint’s memory. In former times these holy gatherings were often violent and boisterous; Samuel Hall and his wife Maria noted in 1840 that ‘until very recently (the peasantry), honoured the memory of the patron saint by assembling in the churchyard to drink and fight,’ the Halls continue to explain that the ‘custom was put to an end by the parish priest who, a few days before one of our visits, had actually turned the whiskey into a stream, gathered the shillelaghs into a large bonfire and made wrathful and brutal men, who had been enemies for centuries, embrace each other in peace and goodwill over Kevin’s grave.’ The Hall’s were too quick in jumping to the conclusion that the more disreputable activities described above had ceased by the 1840s, as due to continued disturbances on feast day Cardinal Paul Cullen is said to have suppressed the pilgrimage in 1862.

There are many legends regarding and detailing the long-life of Saint Kevin who is said to have lived for over a hundred and twenty years from the end of the fifth century until his death at the beginning of the seventh century. A good number of these legends allude to Saint Kevin’s love of solitude, wildlife and nature, and as Kevin is often referred to as the patron saint of blackbirds it seems appropriate to provide perhaps the most well-known legend the Saint is said to have been at prayer in a small wooden hut with holes in the roof, and raising his arms towards heaven to be nearer to God, his upper limbs came through the roof and a blackbird came to rest in his open hand. In his gentleness, patience, and devotion, Saint Kevin is said to have allowed the bird to make her nest and lay her eggs on his palm, holding his outstretched open hand Heavenward until the blackbird’s eggs hatched. The legend has been immortalised with all statues of Saint Kevin depicting the saint with his arms aloft with a blackbird nestled on his palm.

Another legend tells of how a sorceress was attempting to kill the son of a Leinster Chief named Colman. For protection Colman left his son Faoláin at Glendalough under the care of Saint Kevin. At this time Kevin had only set up his monastery and had no resources to care for a child. However, before long God sent a doe to the valley of Glendalough, and from the milk of this doe the child was weaned. One day a brother was milking the doe and left a bucket of milk unattended. Seeing an opportunity, a greedy raven* swooped down to steal some milk only to knock over the container with its beak spilling the contents. In his fury Saint Kevin put a curse on all descendants of the raven that would continue for one day each year after the death of the Saint. The following version of this curse is taken from The History and Topography of Ireland, by the twelfth century Welsh historian Giraldus Cambrensis: ‘On the feast-day of the saint, the ravens of Glendalough, … are prevented by a curse of Saint Kevin from alighting on the earth or taking food. They fly around the village and the church, making a great noise, and on that day enjoy neither rest nor food.’

*Sometimes a rook.

Painting is ‘The Patron Festival of Saint Kevin and the Seven Churches,’ by Joseph Peacock, 1813.

Lower illustration is Saint Kevin and the blackbird, miniature of an Irish codex, ca. 9th or 10th century

Sources

Carty, Francis. Two and Fifty Irish Saints. Dublin, 1941.

Gerald of Wales. The History and Topography of Ireland. Translated by John J O’Meara. Harmondsworth, 1982.

Hall, S.C. (Mr & Mrs). Hall’s Ireland. London,1840.

O’Hanlon, Rev. John Canon O’Hanlon. Lives of the Irish Saints, with Special festivals and the Commemorations of Holy Persons, Volume VI. Dublin, 1875.

Vose, John D. Tales and Yarns of Glendalough and the Wicklow Hills: Eventide at Glendalough Told to John D. Vose by Bill Fanning – Shepherd of Glendalough. (Wicklow, 1986).