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.
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