Long before calendars, Ireland divided the year into four with fire and cattle. The quarter days fall halfway between the solstices and the equinoxes, and Christianity did not so much replace them as move in alongside. All four are still marked — one of them by most of the world, under another name.
The first day of spring in the Irish reckoning, when ewes come into milk — the name is usually read as 'in the belly'. It belongs to Brigid in both her forms, goddess and saint, and its customs are among the most alive of the four: rushes pulled and woven into the Brigid's cross that goes over the door, the brat Bríde left out overnight to catch her blessing, and the doll-like Brídeóg carried from house to house.
Shares its day with St Brigid of Kildare. · Source: Wikipedia ↗
The beginning of summer, when cattle were driven out to the hill pastures. Its great rite was fire: every hearth in the country was quenched and rekindled from a bonfire, and cattle were driven between two fires for protection. The Hill of Uisneach in Westmeath, the mythic centre of Ireland, held the fire that all the others were said to answer.
The harvest festival, named for the god Lugh, who was said to have founded it as funeral games for his foster-mother Tailtiu — who died clearing the plains of Ireland for farming. It was the season for climbing hills, gathering bilberries, matchmaking and horse fairs, and the first sheaf was cut with ceremony.
The greatest of the four: the end of harvest and the beginning of the dark half of the year, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned and the dead could cross. The cave of Oweynagat at Rathcroghan was said to pour out its creatures on that night. People wore disguises so as not to be recognised by whatever was abroad, and left food out for the dead.
Imbolc (1 February, spring), Bealtaine (1 May, summer), Lughnasa (1 August, harvest) and Samhain (1 November, winter). Each falls roughly halfway between a solstice and an equinox, dividing the year into quarters — which is why they are called the quarter days.
Halloween grows directly out of Samhain, the Irish festival marking the end of harvest and the start of winter, when the boundary with the Otherworld was believed to thin. Irish and Scottish emigrants carried its customs to North America in the nineteenth century, where they became modern Halloween — and came home again as trick-or-treating. The carved turnip lantern went out and the pumpkin came back.
The first day of spring in the Irish reckoning, on 1 February, when ewes come into milk — the name is usually read as 'in the belly'. It belongs to Brigid in both her forms, the goddess and the saint, and is still marked with rushes woven into a Brigid's cross for over the door.
It is named for the god Lugh, who according to legend founded it as funeral games for his foster-mother Tailtiu, who died clearing the plains of Ireland for farming. It marked the beginning of the harvest, and it survives in the Irish word for August, Lúnasa, in the Reek Sunday pilgrimage and in Puck Fair.
The places these festivals belong to — Uisneach, Rathcroghan, Croagh Patrick — are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map. · All the saints and their feast days · St Patrick's Day, the one that travelled
Does your parish keep an old custom? Pattern days, wren boys, May bushes, holy wells — a great deal survives only in local memory. Tell us yours.
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