Folklore and Folklife in the Bunnanadden Area and Beyond (By Clare Doohan

By Clare Doohan

I was reared in an agricultural community in the northwest and I have always held a great interest and love of the history and customs of the countryside. The importance of folklore, local techniques and traditions in hay making, turf saving and fair days and the essential tradition of a meitheal (a gathering of people) where neighbours and relations share farm work between them, are examples of old farming practices that benefit the rural community. The traditions of folklore and folklife that grew around these activities gave meaning and unity to the farming community.

Folklore is a defined notion of the culture of the common people of the countryside. This includes the intangible aspect of culture, such as stories, calendar customs, rituals, songs, fairs, proverbs, superstitions and aspects of belief. This information was passed down orally from one generation to the next often over long periods of time. People lived in the one place for many generations and all aspects of country life were embraced. The loyalty and support of the community, which was bound by kinship and marriage ties, was a vital element of its survival and success. The tangible physical aspect of this culture, using the skills for such activities as craft and furniture making and hay making are living traditions and are known as folklife. Máirtin Ó Cadhain, the well-known Irish writer from a storytelling family in Connemara, declared, ‘I was squeezed from the world of folklore, a world that had changed little in a thousand years.’ Hugh Nolan, a story teller from Ballymoney, Co. Fermanagh, said his life’s consolation had been “keeping the truth” and “telling the whole tale”.

Folklore and poverty went together and the people accepted the fate which life dealt them, whether it was famine, evictions, bad weather, unexpected death or good fortune. They tried to make sense of life and used folklore and superstition to give themselves some control over their fate.

Joe Mc Gowan, a well-known Sligo writer of folklore stories, describes the work and entertainment of saving the hay in the past in his story “The Haymakers”. In days gone by, grass was cut and saved for hay in July and August. A man used a scythe for cutting the grass. It was hard and arduous work and it would take a good man to cut an acre in the day. Then a week later, depending on the weather, the whole family were out in the meadow field turning the hay with pitch forks. After that, the hay was lapped (small hay cocks). A fortnight or so later, the family were out again making haycocks with forks and rakes. Making a good haycock took great expertise and men would take pride in their skill and be noted for it by their neighbours.

Life was hard long ago, so the meitheal, where family and neighbours joined together in bringing the hay home, was vital to the community to ensure that the work got done.

Annie Brennan Gilmartin, from Bunnanadden, Co. Sligo, described the hay making on her farm in the 1940’s and the usefulness of every family member as well as the neighbours.

‘A meitheal at the gathering of the hay. Ten men came on one day. It was a great thing to cook for them. If it was a good day, you’d be looking forward to meet the people. My father’s two brothers would come and a nephew and some of the neighbours. It was great to hear the chat of them. By 8am - Mother would have the cows milked and be ready for feeding the men. Mother milked six cows by hand twice a day every day.

Bringing in the hay - ‘They came up in the morning. They came in the horse and cart to bring in the hay. M. Kerins brought the pony and cart. Someone was driving our donkey and cart.

We used pitch forks and rakes. “My father was very good at the rake.” My mother brought us the tea in the field and she’d stay with us for a while, helping.’

Fine weather was essential for haymaking, but as this proverb states: ‘There’s no use praying for fine weather if the ram’s back is to the ditch’. The meaning of this is - when a ram’s back was facing the ditch, it meant that there would be rain. Storytelling around the haymaking was all part of the day’s happenings. “It was a great day at a haystack long ago. There’d be a jar of porter and a good big feed and then the ould boys would get a mug or two of porter to put them in the humour.”

A farming community considered saving the turf of equal importance

to saving the hay. The turf fire heated the home and cooked the meals. Just as with the hay making, turf saving depended on good weather. Two or three men were needed to cut the turf on the bog. In April-May, the turf was cut into sods with a slean, a spade for cutting turf, by one man and thrown up to another who would lay it on the turf bank to dry. A skilled cutter could keep two men going. The entire family worked on the bog after the turf was cut. The turf could be ready for its first turning two weeks later. A week or two after that, it got its second turning and then the family footed it. A fortnight later, they clamped it. From July to October, the turf was brought home with an ass and creel.

On fair days many folklore practices that went back hundreds of years and included vigorous bargaining and hand slapping, giving a luck penny and other traditions and beliefs. The farmer measured the year by the timing of fairs, not by the calendar.

Fairs were important meeting places for the farming community, where livestock was traded, farm produce was sold, and all the essential commodities for the farm and household could be bought. It was also a welcome social event and exciting change in the daily grind of farming life.

Fairs were held throughout the year but were especially popular during the Celtic festivals of Bealtaine (May) and Samhain (November). They were not only a celebration of the completion of spring and summer farming work and a new season beginning, but also a chance to release the stresses of life.

There were fairs held in nearly every town and village in the northwest of Ireland. In 1837, fairs were held in Bunnanadden on Jan 14th, June 2nd, Aug 6th, Sep 10th, Oct 7th and Nov 27th.

Wilson’s Directory of Ireland, 1834 gives the names of the Fair towns in Co. Sligo in that year. (Some spellings are variations compared to the presentday spelling).

SLIGO – Ardnaglass, Ballasodare, Ballinacarrow, Ballinahatty, Ballintogher, Ballymoate, Banada, Bellaghy, Beltra, Bunninaden, Carney, Carrignagat, Castlebaldwin, Cliffony, Collooney, Curry, Drinaghanbeg, Dromore, Easky, Enniscrone, Farinaharpy, Jameswell, Newtown, Quiguboy, Roslee, Sligo town, Templehouse, Tobbercorry, Tubberscanavan.

Tommy Mc Loughlin from Rinbawn, Co. Sligo said “I was luckier than most. I had Ballymote and Tubbercurry and Collooney. I’d have loved to go to more.”

The traditional custom and practice of trading of livestock, which was ‘the noisy ritual of assessing values and prolonged bargaining may have come from a time before the use of money was general.’ These practices were ancient and an integral part of the folklore of the area. It was like a rite of passage into adulthood for the young men as they had to show how capable and competent they were at the buying and selling of livestock. The luck penny was essential to the process of selling livestock. This was the coin which was given back to the buyer by the seller at the completion of the sale. It was bad luck not to give it and many a fight would start if the luck penny was not considered sufficient.

It was a well-known belief, that if a man on his way to a fair met a redhaired woman, he had to turn back or else he would have bad luck with him. Men and women were involved in the fairs. The women handled the turkey and geese sales. Cant men, salesmen with tents who went from fair to fair, sold second hand clothes and boots. There was a carnival atmosphere at the fairs, with ballad singers and street musicians, beggars, match makers, pedlars and troublemakers.

Tommy Mc Loughlin remembers - “There were buskers at the fairs. Ned Devaney had an accordion. He had only one tune ‘East is East and West is West’. Maguire, he had a great accordion.”

The fair days provided plenty of business for the townspeople who supplied “eating houses” like Mrs. Scanlon and Miss Flanagan of Ballymote and Kennedy’s and O’ Toole’s of Tubbercurry and the local pubs and shops were very busy.

The fairs of old retained some pagan practices. At the end of the day, faction fights often took place, when old scores and family feuds were settled. Indeed, it was an accepted practice that a fight would take place at the fair. After an orderly day’s dealings at Castlebaldwin Fair, with