Thursday 23 June 2016

St Johns Eve in Tipperary


By Bruce McAdam from Reykjavik, Iceland - Wickerman, Archaeolink 2008, CC BY-SA 2.0,
I did a bit of a search for folklore about St. Johns Eve from around Tipperary. In many places in the west of Ireland the night is still celebrated with bonfires but it doesn't seem to have survived in Tipperary.
I found ones from Clash near Toomevara, Curraghpoor near Tipp Town and Toor near Newport.
So it shows a reasonable spread around the county.


The one from Toor is my favourite
"The custom of lighting bone-fires on St John's Eve still prevails but many of the attendant ceremonies such as throwing in a bone, etc. have fallen into disuse. At the present time people usually light a bush in the corner of each field. The doing of this is supposed to bring good luck.
Long ago people made a fire of turf on the roadside and they threw a bone into it and then danced around it."

http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922161/4857215/5016281

From Curraghpoor

"St John's Eve falls on the 23rd June and there is an old custom associated with it, which is still observed here. On that night a group of youths gather together at a cross roads and they light a bone-fire. They sit around it singing and playing music and some of them dance. They often remain on until early morning. Some people take a lighted furze bush from the bonefire and walk around the potato garden with it. This is supposed to prevent disease in the crop. Other farmers drive their cows through the embers of the bone-fire to keep them from disease."

http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922285/4867286/5022772

From Clash outside Toomevara

"We have St Johns Day the 24th of June. The people light bonfires that night. They used to light them on the hills. It was the custom in olden times. They used to light them in the fields where the crops are sown. It was a custom that the farmers used to light furze bushes in the tillage fields. There used to be big crowds around the bonfires and they used to be dancing and singing around the fires. they used to stay up all night. There was a bonfire in Ballentimple one time and there was a man burned he fell into the fire. He had to go to hospital for three weeks. There was never a bonfire there from that out. It is in the night they light the fires."

http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922138/4855968/5011432

Edit

From Foilycleary near Rearcross

"The old custom of lighting a fire on St. Johns (night) eve is still observed here and for several years that fire, around which young and old including the teachers gather, and sing and dance for a few hours, has been lit at the "Tailors Bush". In later years they make it a practice of singing Irish song and dancing the old Irish dances."

http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922083/4850671/4949783

“In Ireland each district or locality had its own customs. These old customs are handed down from our Great GrandMothers and Grandfathers.
In my district on the last Sunday in July people go off to "The Hight of Ireland and gather frohans. They also have a dance on the top of the Hill. We also light Bon Fires here on St Peter and St. Pauls night on top of the mountains and sometimes in the bogs. In the south Tipperary the people light bon-fires in the streets on the Eve of St Johns Day. They go around the night before collecting pennies for Material for the fires and the town is always in a blaze on St Johns Eve.
Unfortunately these old customs which were so simple and exciting are dying out to be replaced by the Modern Cinema.”

https://duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922190/4859520/5017923

 

“2. The driving of beasts through fire on St. John's Eve to keep away sickness seems to have visited in Charles Kickham's time. He refers to the custom in his poem, St Johns Eve" - "His cows the farmer slowly [?] drove across the blaze he knew not why".”

https://duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922237/4863219/5019977

 

 “A bon-fire is lit on St John's eve and materials is procured for it before.”

https://duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922296/4867907/5058042

 

“In this district bonfires are lighted on St. Johns Night the eve of 24th of June. This is to remind us of the miraculous preservation of St. John by Almighty God from being burned when he was cast into a cauldren of boiling oil, not even the hair of his head was injured.”

https://duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922300/4868264/5020165

 




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