Local Customs for Special Days in the Ballyshannon Area

Friday 1st May 2020.  Remembering  local customs for special days from May Day, Bonfire Night, Halloween, New Year's Day, Lent and a local Wedding Custom.

Saturday 2nd May 2020.  Rossnowlagh, Ballintra,  Kilbarron, Creevy, Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Kinlough and Belleek (plus photos) feature in a list of 10 attractions for  visitors over 100 year's ago.  

People long ago had great faith in customs and traditions which were handed down through the generations. People were also very much in tune with the seasons and had customs to go with particular times of the year. Certain times of the year such as Halloween, Bonfire Night, New Year’s Day and May Day had their own special customs in this area.

New Year’s Day

• Never pay out money on New Year's Day
• Water whether dirty or clean or ashes should not be thrown out.
• The floor should be brushed towards the hearth, not out the door.

Lent

The custom in the 19th century was to have dancers and fiddlers performing in the house on Shrove  Tuesday with neighbors gathering in for the fun before Lent began. The 40 days of Lent were then spent in fasting and prayer as was the custom until recent times.

For St. Patrick's Day people in the Ballyshannon area made crosses which they wore on their garments as far back as the 1840s and probably much earlier. 

May Eve 

• Yellow flowers like buttercups from the meadows were collected on the eve of May day. They were made into wreaths and hung over doors. These flowers were supposed to bring good luck all the year round to those who passed under them. (A modern version of this custom has, for many years, been carried on by the McNamara family at West Rock who place buttercups. on their neighbours' window sills and doorways. No doubt other areas have similar customs).

• On the evening before the First of May ashes were put on the doorstep and in the morning, if a footprint was turned inwards in the ashes, it was a sign of a marriage in the house, but if the footprint pointed outwards it was a sign of a death in the house.

• If you got up before the sun rose on May morning and washed your face in the dew you would be good-looking for the rest of that year.
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Bonfire Night

• The night of St. John’s Day was bonfire night and before leaving the fire the mother followed by the family walked around the fire and said three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys in honour of St. John. The father of the house then put some of the coal in a bucket and dropped one in the cornfield, one in the potato field and so on, to bring good luck to the crop. 

• Another version of the Bonfire custom was to spread the dying embers on crops for good luck and to drive the cattle through the bonfire.

• Bonfire night has always been one of the highlights of the year when local communities came together to play and mark the seasons. In June 1844 the people looked forward to bonfire night but the morning was stormy however it calmed down later and there was a beautiful evening. In 1844 Mary Anne Sheil, who lived in College Street, in the house now occupied by the HSE at the entrance to St. Patrick's Church car park, counted 21 bonfires from the skylight window of her home.

In the 1930s there were bonfires all over town in places like Milltown, The Cornmarket, Erne Street, Falgarragh, The Kiln Well, The Rock and the Port.

Halloween Night

On Halloween night it was the custom that the girls of the house turned their petticoats inside out and left them in front of the fire. The first man to enter the house turned one of the petticoats. The daughter that the petticoat belonged to would marry that man. 

Another custom was that after the fire was raked the girls put a bowl of water on the hearth and the first man that moved it was a husband of the girl who had left the water.

Old Halloween

This was celebrated on the 11th November in the 19th century. Halloween as we know it was called New Halloween. Parlour games played in Ballyshannon included placing apple peels over the door to see who would come under each family members peel. A future marriage a possibility! 

A lottery with a difference was also held again with a view to marriage. Names were written down of famous national and well known locals and again great fun  and discussion in seeing what marriage matches it threw up. 

Straw Boys  (Soinbhe Lally)

Wedding Custom

 A wedding custom was that on the night of the wedding there nearly always was a dance in the house of the bride. Strawboys came to the house and the bridegroom was supposed to go out and give the boys a treat and some money. Then they went away dancing and singing and wishing the bride and groom luck. 

The bringing home or the hauling home was another custom with a party for the wedding couple lasting all night.

Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available when things return to normal in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

Topics include: How to go about Tracing your Roots/The first settlers in the area/ Newly researched history of the town of Ballyshannon and the townlands in Kilbarron and Mágh Éne parishes/ Records of the first travellers and tourists to Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Belleek, Rossnowlagh and Ballintra/An aerial guide to place names along the Erne from Ballyshannon to the Bar/Flora and Fauna of the area/ A history of buildings and housing estates in the locality/Graveyard Inscriptions from the Abbey graveyard, St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s /Rolling back the years with many memories of the Great Famine, Independence struggle, hydro-electric scheme, Gaelic games, boxing, handball, Boy Scouts, soccer, mummers, characters, organisations, folklore and lots more.