“ ’Tis a big yoke alright ” said Paddy,“ white and covered in circles, like someone’s taken a baked bean can to it.”
Paddy and the stone beneath a stump.
My neighbour was working for Coilte, the Forestry and his gang had cleared a section of coniferous trees up on the Slieve Bloom when Paddy came across a stone, the like of which he’d never seen.
“Would you come and have a look?” he asked, so we agreed a day to meet.
Our destination was a small river valley lying between the shoulders of the hills.
As we drove the landscape below stretched out as far as the Dublin mountains.
We climbed to Ballyhuppahaune and beyond.
Past the last house and the old sheebeen.
Upwards until the road narrowed.
Ending in a forestry track, a silent place edged with mountain ash.
From there it was a hike across rough ground and islands of tree stumps until we reached the stone.
Composed of white sandstone, it was about half a metre wide, smooth and covered
with perfect circles of of various sizes and depths.
What was this ?
The day was warm, the valley peaceful, filled with birdsong and the murmuring Owenass River,
so we sat and contemplated the boulder.
As my eyes wandered the designs, I saw cycles, suns, moons and carvings made by our ancestors.
Excitement bubbled, ancient rock art in the Slieve Bloom!
But as I cleared pine needles and debris from the grooves I realised they were smooth,
shouldn’t there be ‘pick marks’ made by tools?
If not man made what were they?
After a while Paddy asked what I thought and I admitted I was mystified.
Later, I returned with friends and together we levered up the stone to peer beneath.
A few circles were marked on the underside.
We scrutinised it, we meditated on it.
Was it a bullaun stone?
Was it rock art?
Were those cup and ring marks?
We argued this way and that.
After an hour or so we gave up and decided to seek the opinion of someone with more experience in rocks.
A length of white string was tied around the nearby tree stump as a marker, photographs were taken and still puzzled, we went home.
***
The geologist, Dr. John Feehan, felt the stone was intriguing enough to make a site visit and a few days later he contacted me with his opinion: the circles were not hand carved but made by nature.
I was disappointed as my rock art theory went up in smoke, however John couldn’t say how the markings had been made.
As he sent his photographs and measurements to various geologists across the world to find the answer I eagerly awaited their conclusion, imagining huge bursting bubbles or some prehistoric creature leaving shapes in the sand.
But no answer came, the geologists were baffled too.
Soon the stone was shrouded again in shadows and trees.
To this day the origin of The Mysterious Stone remains an enigma.
Perhaps Paddy was right. Maybe it was a man with a baked bean can after all.
Along the boreen flowers are becoming fruits and the year is turning towards Lughnasadh.
Honeysuckle flowers depart & berries appear.
The earliest name for Lughnasadh, derived from Old Irish, is Brón Trogain, which likens the earth to a woman in labour, sorrowing as she births her fruit.
As green berries are revealed, the first wild fruit to ripen is usually the fraochan.
Also known as fraughan, bilberry, whortleberry, blaeberry, heatherberry, whorts & hurts.
Fraochans have been known in Ireland since ancient times and their seeds have been discovered during excavations of Viking and Anglo-Norman settlements in Dublin.
Across rural Ireland it was customary to celebrate this time of year by visiting the heights of the land to pick the berries.
Purple dye was produced from the berries and the juice was believed to be a cure for eczema
The shrubs grow low on heathland and wet mountainsides where their solitary flowers produce purple-black berries, rich in vitamin C. Bilberries were traditionally gathered on the last Sunday of July or the first Sunday of August and Domhnach na bhFraochog, Fraochan Sunday, was considered a day of great festivity when people danced, sang and played games in the wild places.
Ard Éireann on the border between counties Laois and Offaly,
was a popular place to harvest fraochans.
In 1942 massive crowds were reported as streams of cars, pony traps and bicycles from the surrounding countryside made their way to Arderin to pick the berries.
Large quantities of bilberries for export to Britain were harvested in Carlow, Wicklow, Tipperary and Waterford in the early 20th century. The price paid was very low and the baskets large but hundreds of people picked them to earn money to support their families.
During the 2nd World War imports of bilberries to Britain from Europe were disrupted resulting
in the price paid to Irish pickers increasing dramatically, especially as British pilots
reported that bilberry jam improved their night vision.
In earlier times the gathering of fraochans appears to have involved only the young people who would spend the day walking to the slopes, foraging for berries and celebrating.
In Co. Donegal the aged were not allowed upon the hill tops so berries were strung on long stalks of grass, cuiseógs, to be brought down to them.
At Glenkitt, Co. Laois people gathered to climb the slopes of Ard Erin in search of berries.
Many accounts describe Fraochan Sunday as a time for courtship, a festival where people could hope to find a husband or wife.
Young men threaded berries, making bracelets as gifts for the young women.
Custom dictated that the bracelets had to be removed and left on the hill top at the end of the day, although the reason for this has long been forgotten.
A plentiful supply of the berries were thought to bring good luck to the coming harvest.
Bilberry pies called Pócai Hócai, were made by young women to be presented to their chosen partners and fraochan wine, a mixture of sugar and berry juice, was given to lovers in the hope of hastening a wedding.
Perhaps the tradition of courtship associated with Bilberry Sunday is an echo of the old Teltown Marriages lasting for a year and a day, which also took place at Lughnasadh ?
Gathering bilberries upon the heights brought people to the hilltop mounds and fairy-forts and there are accounts of the Old Gods and the Good People being honoured at this time.
A celebration was held on Knockfeerna Hill, Co. Limerick where flowers and fraochanswere strewn around a small cairn, the ‘Struicín’near the summit, reputedly the entrance to
Donn Fírinne’s underground palace.
On the small hill, the Spellick, near to Slieve Gullion, Co. Armagh, everyone who gathered fraochans had to sit on a rocky formation known as the Cailleach Beara’s Chair, for luck.
However Crom Dubh, the ‘black stooped one’, was the pagan deity most associated with the festival and gathering berries any later than Fraochan Sunday was thought to bring his curse.
Of the many traditions associated with Brón Trogain, later Lughnasadh, it appears that Fraochan Sunday has stood the test of time. In many areas people still pick fraochans on the hills.
Here in the midlands Ard Erin was silent this year and Glenkitt a lonely place,
but the fraochans are still thriving on the hills.
***
Take a sound journey through Glenkitt to Ard Erin with local guide Mick Dowling who remembers the days when thousands gathered on Frochan Sunday.
Yesterday was Oíche Bealtaine, May Eve, and last night the fairy forts opened and the Good People
travelled across the land.
At Bealtaine and Samhain They are at their most powerful and in the past people would put up a May Bush near the front door to protect their homes from the travelling Daoine Sídhe.
Recent May bushes in the Slieve Bloom mountains.
The bush itself consisted of a green branch of hawthorn or other tree stuck into the ground or tied to a pole and set in front of the homeplace.
As well as providing protection against Otherworldly attention, the bush was also believed to also ensure an abundant milk supply all summer long.
In some rural areas it was placed in the middle of a field and when night fell, set alight,
in other places branches from the bush were thrown amongst the crops to guarantee a good harvest.
Here in Co. Laois slips of whitethorn were blessed with holy water and stuck into the earth in
fields to prevent the Good People from harming the new crops.
The May Bush tradition was particularly strong in Co. Wexford where it was stuck on top of the
dung heap used to fertilise produce.
Hawthorn branch with traditional decorations.
The May Bush was decorated by adults and children with traditional trimmings consisting of ribbons,coloured egg shells, bunches of yellow flowers and strips of coloured paper.
Photo courtesy of Michael Fortune.
The practice of decorating the bush is considered by some to be a survival of an ancient Bealtaine tradition welcoming the summer whilst others believed differently:
Peggy Doyle, Co. Wexford. Taken from James Lawlor, Irish National Folklore Collection.
May bushes were also customary in towns and cities.
In Dublin it was recorded that rival gangs from north and south of the River Liffey would vie
to exhibit “the best dressed and handsomest May bush”.
May Bush, Co. Westmeath 1964, National Folklore Commission.
In town and country alike there was often a community May bush, placed on common land or
at the crossroads and as darkness fell stumps of candles or small rush lights were lit around the May bush as people danced to traditional music.
These bushes were frequently guarded overnight by locals in order to protect them from being stolen by outsiders whom, it was believed, would steal the year’s luck from its rightful owners.
In some areas the bush was left in position until the end of May,
in others until the decorations had crumbled and the bush itself was burned.
The importance of the May bush and its’ accompanying celebrations declined over time, especially in towns when, in the 18th century, authorities enacted a number of British laws forbidding their erection on public roads or near houses.
Those who continued the tradition were heavily fined.
May bushes in the Irish Midlands.
Recent years have seen the May bush return to Irish homes and communities as the tradition
is revived and the start of summer is celebrated once more.
Poster courtesy of Michael Fortune & Aileen Lambert.
Bealtaine ‘May Bush’ Festival at Kinnitty Castle, Co. Offaly, 2014.
When returning home through night dark lanes there is no greater pleasure than seeing a welcoming light in the window and turf smoke drifting like mist across the fields.
In rural Ireland it is said that “there was once a house to every field”, now many lie cold and empty.
Empty cottage in Glenbarrow.
Famine, eviction and enforced migration meant that homes were left to fall and today this continues as young people and families emigrate seeking employment.
Home to a local dowser and once a well known ‘rambling’ house where neighbours would gather
of an evening to chat and exchange news.
Another empty family home which never knew electricity,
lit only by oil lamps & candles.
Few live now in the musical or rambling houses, where you were once welcomed to the hearth, especially if you could share a tune or tell a tale.
An abandoned cart and tractor speak of lives lived close to the land.
In places, where walls stood, all that remains are stones.
Others are marked annually by flowering bulbs, once planted by the Woman of the House, or by a rambling rose which still guards a gateway.
Reminders of old beliefs also remain.
Small pieces of iron, horseshoes, tobacco, whiskey and Christian medals have been discovered in the foundations of old homes, thought to be offerings to the spirit of the place.
A donkey or horse shoe placed above the door was common and understood to bring good luck
and deflect the attentions of the Good People.
The house itself could not be built where it would disrupt Otherworld inhabitants or hinder the movement of
Traditionally the use of white quartz, materials from sacred sites and ruins were taboo when building, as was red oak.
To ensure protection, a Brigid’s cross was made annually and hung above the door, the hearth or placed in the thatch.
Even in town houses and pubs the Brigid’s cross gave protection.
Of the many folk practices one of the most extensive seems to be the prohibition against extending
the home westwards.
Donn, the god of the dead, had his house off the west coast.
It was thought that ‘only a man stronger than God would extend his house to the west’.
This tradition appears to stem from the belief that the place of the setting sun was the place where the dead went and in some areas the west room was used for laying out the deceased. By building on westwards it was understood that a death would occur in the family soon after the new room was completed.
***
The Homeplace in my painting once stood across from my own home.
Only stones remain to tell the tale.
Although the people have long gone, I sometimes imagine that I catch voices and a drifting tune on the air and I’m not alone in having glimpsed a glow of light where the old homeplace once stood.
Despite the changes in the country neighbours do still gather over a cup of tea to exchange news and there are modern day kitchen sessions.
This one in Lisdoonvara shows Sean Nós dancing on the flags by the fire with Brigid’s Crosses hanging in the background.
Sean Nós Dancer Stephanie Kane, session hosted by Joe Kelleher with the accordion player Bobby Gardiner.
‘Raths and Fairies’ - tales of what can happen when you cross the Good People by Michael Fortune, from his Co. Wexford folklore collection.
