May Day tales

Cuimhneamh an Chláir, Clare’s award-winning oral history and folklore group, documents seasonal customs that were important rituals in the calendar year. Customs and beliefs surrounding May Eve occupied a central role in folk superstitions and many strategies were observed in respect of this day. The stories are the direct words of those recorded.

Frank Davis
Churchill, Ennistymon and Carnane, Doolin
Born 1931
Cuairteoir: Frances Madigan

“Well, when I was growing up in Ennistymon, there was one particular man, he’d go ’round and he’d go with the May Bough as we called it. He’d cut the new shoots off of the sycamore tree and he’d bring them and he’d stick a piece on every house all along the Main Street and all up around the hill. And then you’d give him a few shillings if you had a few shillings or a few coppers or whatever money you had. But if you didn’t pay this year, you’d get no May Bough next year so you had to pay up or else you were naked.

“The idea of the May Bough was to keep the evil spirits away from the house and from the family and from the street and every other thing, that you’d have luck for the whole year once the May Bough was up. And, of course, it’s a great sign of summer starting as well when you see the new leaves, the new buds and the new flowers.

“Well, Jack Shea did it for a while, Tom Moran did it for a while and Voucher did it for a while as we call him [Paddy Connors]. Then it all died away… Although every year since I went to Doolin, I put it up myself in the house and in my daughter’s house when she built a house and in the cabins. Every house, every shed and every workplace had it as well. It was usually sycamore or horse chestnut with the bigger leaves.

“Well, in the room, not in the kitchen, my mother would always have the May altar and she’d light a candle for the whole month of May. We always had May altars at school. We’d bring the flowers. We’d set up the May altar ourselves and we’d light the candle. Candles were very common then. There were no scented candles, only the plain white candle and we’d always say our prayers in front of the altar at school.

“My father, he took a drink, sometimes he’d take too much… He never drank for the month of May. He never drank for the month of November. He said he didn’t drink for the month of May in thanksgiving because he said manys the night he’d be out. He used to drive a lorry for Griffins at the time and he’d be out and he’d be tired and our Blessed Lady always brought him home.

“There’s another tradition, if you took the first spring water from the well. If you went to a neighbour’s well and took the water, the neighbour would have bad luck for the year. You could put that down to piseógs or superstition or whatever you like, I don’t know.

“’Twas commonly known that you didn’t go to anyone’s well. You went to your own well on May Day. Generally, if your own well was down and your neighbour’s well was full, you didn’t go near it on May Day. May Day was a Gale day. We’d pay the rate to Micho Connole. He’d come to collect the rate in Ennistymon. Where the new health centre is now, that was Carmody Hogan’s shop and he had a little office there. We’d pay the rate there. We’d pay the rate in May and November. He was the rate collector.”

 

Teresa Flynn,
Selernon, Mountshannon
Born 1930
Cuairteoir: Frances Madigan

“I remember Jim Forde. He came in one evening and it was raining cats and dogs as we used to say and ’twas May Eve. ‘Lizzie,’ he said to my mother, ‘I have to go down to the Bull Field to plant the May Pole’. He hit off to the Bull Field to put down the May Pole. ’Twas a little bit of a quick beam and you broke it off. Oh Sacred Redeemer, sure a lot of people did it. Was it a piseóg? It must have been.
“What in the name of God was it going to protect us from? The May Pole was a must for most families. You put it at the top of the drills where they were opened. The cultivated field was the one you were dealing with. It was definitely for the crops. It was very much part of protecting them.”

Tomsie O’Sullivan
Lahinch
Born 1931
Cuairteoir: Frances Madigan

“There were only the few families for the May Day tradition. Anne Rock is great for those things. Anne goes round to numerous houses of the older residents of Lahinch, which are very few today. And she’s put the May Bough in the letterbox outside your door.
“I think the wish of it was – I remember hearing from school, Barney Higgins – it was supposed to bring good healing and it was a sign of spring and a lift for people. All of that goodness of the month of May was wished to you by having the May Bough in your house. And it kept the fairies away. The fairies were mentioned in it as well.
“We never brought it in. You’d leave it; it was supposed to be left for seven days until it withered and then you’d take it in. It’s supposed to keep out evil. That was the other side of it as well, along with part of the wish, spiritual healing was supposed to be with it as well.”

Jack Flanagan
Lisdooney, Kilfenora and Dough, Lahinch
Born 1921
Cuairteoir; Frances Madigan

“They were very suspicious about May Day as regards the milk. ’Twas reckoned that some people had a charm that they could take the butter. That when you’d be making a churn of butter in the house that you could be making it all day and you’d have no butter in it.
“They would be very afraid if anyone came to the house to take out a coal of fire, which was the custom near a bog. People when they’d be cutting turf, they’d come into the house for a lighted turf. They’d start a fire in the bog to boil a kettle of water. On no account would a fire be let out of the house on May Day. I never seen anything to happen around our place only what they’d talk about.
“We didn’t put up anything [May Bush].”

Nuala Breathneach
Rathfarnham, Dublin (native of Glann, Ennistymon)
Cuairteoir: Tara Sparling
Recorded in Dublin, June 1, 2011

“We had cattle at one particular era but we didn’t keep them up to the end. When I say the end, I mean when my parents were getting old, we just had cows for milking… There were things that went on too, about the milking… May Eve she [Nuala’s mother] would always go out and shake the holy water on the cows because this thing of the piseógs went on… there was a thing about the piseógs.
“I remember one time, there were two elderly ladies, spinsters that were together up on part; they were adjoining the land that my father bought up the mountain. They were called Babe and Sis Shannon. They were a great pair… I remember one time Sis came down and it must have been May Eve because my mother passed some remark to her and the next thing, she threw salt over her shoulder, the lady did…
“At the time I didn’t know what was going on but I just remembered the incident. It was obviously to do with these piseógs. There was a particular priest one time, he was never known to give a sermon. But I remember distinctly on one particular whatever Sunday it was that was closest to May Eve, he came out and gave a sermon for 20 solid minutes, I’d say or half an hour, about all this badness that was going on… and he never again gave a sermon after that…
“To get the evil to work, as we say, they [the piseógs] might bury eggs in your land or they might bury a hen in your land. That was all kind of mischievous, really impish stuff I suppose but there was an evil attached to it, according to the minds of the people that were doing it… We just had all these things in our heads. I suppose we couldn’t make head or tail of the whole thing but it’s just things that come with you when you’re growing up. Like Biddy Early and her bottle over in East Clare.”

Seamus O’Donnell
Currakyle, Flagmount
1921 – 2012
Cuairteoir: Geraldine Greene
Recorded: April and November 2010

“On May Eve, we’d often be out walking the road and I could see this piece of quickbeam, the old wild cherry, the ould lads would call it quickbeam. I saw it stuck down where there’d be tillage at the end of a drill of spuds. I couldn’t know what was the idea but someone gave me an inkling of it that it was an ould superstitious thing.
“I watched a guy on May Eve and he came along with his long piece of quickbeam and stuck it down and he believed that it would bring a good crop. I saw him do it. Did ye do that up in yer place in Kilnamona? Well, I saw it done here.”

Mary King, née Kierse
Kilnaboy and Dysart
Cuairteoir: Geraldine Greene
Recorded: June 2012

“May Eve, oh yes, there used to be great tales about that. That time, they’d go round and whatever they used to do to the cows, they would take away the milk. The proceeds that would come from the spuds, they’d plant eggs in the garden and bury them and they’d seemingly plant eggs in the garden instead of the owners.
“How they used to do that, I don’t know. And they’d do the same with the cows – they used visit the cows on May Night and they could take the milk or the produce from the owners. Piseógs but the eggs in the garden was very common that time. Several people found the eggs buried.
“I remember being in mass in Kilmaley once around May Night and I remember the priest gave out about that and the carry-on and what people were up to and he was shouting.”

Paddy ‘Bowler’ Tuohy
Garryeighter, Whitegate
Cuairteoir: Tomás Mac Conmara
Recorded: December 12, 2011

“May Day, shur they’d be comin’ with the May pole and they’d be stickin’ it around and ah they’d be shakin’ holy water and if they got eggs then in a drill, t’would be a very bad sign. There was somebody robbin’ the crop and all that.
“Well shur, you’d be goin’ then to, there was always a May Day fair in Scariff. That was a big day always because all the stallions would be comin’ in that time into the fair and they’d be showin’ em off. They’d stick them [May bushes] nearly in all the fields. You’d see ’em in all the fields as you’d be goin’ on to the May Day fair in Scariff. There would be all the, what they called, May poles stuck down in all the fields. The May pole was the mountain ash.”

Michael ‘Hookey’ Farrell
Tintrim, Whitegate
1920-2011
Cuairteoir: Tomás Mac Conmara
Recorded April 26, 2011

“I know I remember it because I had to put down the sticks below in Ogonnelloe. That was my day’s work, May Day. Below in May Day, when my uncle Johnny Farrell would get up, he’d say to me, ‘you tackle the pony and trap and g’out and get, do you see that May tree out there?’ ‘Bring out the hook with you’, he’d say, ‘and cut all the little branches, about 20 of ’em.
“He had three farms. You’d go up to Ballybran, Caherhurley and Cahir and you’d put sticks in every field for May Eve. That was May Eve now. Do that and you’d have no sickness in your cattle. When I’d come in then he’d ask me, ‘did you do it?’ I’d say I did and he’d say, ‘go up now and put one in with the spuds now’.”

Teresa Madigan
Cuairteoir: Eileen O’Carroll 
Recorded: October 17 2009

“Oh shur, May Eve years ago, they used to do awful things May Eve. The May bush, they’d hang that on the door so that no fairies could come in, to protect the house from the fairies. T’would be a piece of whitethorn or something. There was a lot of things they used to do May morning. Out before sunrise, after sunset and before sunrise. They used to be at witchy things.
“Then the May water. You’d take a bottle of that into the house from the spring well, after sunset, before sunrise. Well, that could be got for the year or for two years and t’would be perfect. I remember we used to put some of it in the churn. A couple of drops in it when we were making the butter.”