Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-01-20
SURVIVING OLD IRISH CUSTOMS.
Dancing of "Straw Eoys"-"keening
ing" at Funerals-Pipes at Burials.

straw DoSS. IhlS, with the custom
of killing a wren on ST. Stephens day
is merely a pastime and as such is
eagerly kept up by the young men
and boys.
Although great number of people
can be happy dancing on a mud floor,
says the Ave Maria, still space does
eurtail the possible hospitality of u
newly married pair and there are
always some neighbors who cannot
be included among the wedding
guests.
Any young men who have been
omitted dress themselves up in white
garments and on their heads they
wear masks plated deliberately in
straw. Thus disguised they join the
wedding party and each one in turn
claims the bride for a dance. To take
any refreshments would be quite in
correct: the straw boys merely
dance and go away.
The custom belonging to st. Step
hens day is still observed in the
eastern counties of ireland, where
"straw boys" are no longer known.
1t must be a very old custom. for
the killing of a wren dates back to
the times when Ireland was invad-
ed by the Danes, and wren by
dropping on to the Danish sentinels
drum is said to have given warning
to the invaders that the Irish army
was at hand.
Now the wren is killed by the boys
who have never heard the origin of
the custom, and il is carried from
house to house, tied to a furze bush,
. h. la, IN,
old rags they can lay hands upon,
and at each door they sing the dog
geral lines
The wren. the wren, the king Of all
birds,
On st. Stephens Day was caught in
the furZe,
Though his body's small, his fami-
ly's great.
Come out. Mrs. -, and give us
trate,
And there are very few who do not
give a copper toward keeping alive
this old, old custom.
Another Christmas custom-but
this is d custom Of religious senti
ment-is that of placing a lighted
candle in every window on the night
of Christmas eve, the idea having
originally been to show that if the
holy family had come to that house
they would have found a welcome
instead of the repulse of the house
holders of Bethlehem.
ITO light in the birth of the Re-
deemer of the world" so it was ex
planned by an old woman, who still
possessed one of the triple holders
for flashlights that in the old days
every one kept safely for use at
Christmas time. Now that manufaet
ured candles have taken the place of
tailow dips, those who keep up the
custom are satisfied with setting
sometimes one, sometimes three
candlesticlls in each window.
The custom of keeping a goat with
cows and a bantam with hens may
be traced to an idea of luck, though
it is also maintained that goats
eagerly seek out a pasture and soon
clear it of all herbs that would be
injurious to cows when the grass be-
/ gan to fail.
The most interesting as well as
the oldest and still most cherished
J customs are those that have gather
| ed round deaths and funerals. The
L
ed by Irish writer's, Is now to be met
| with only in the West, where the
soft plaintive voices seem to lend
| themselves peculiarly to ii.
No one who has not heard real
keen can imagine the wild melancho-
| ~ of the call that brings an un-
| sought for lump to the throat of
| the passerby. AS soon as a person
dies the women raise their voices in
a high minor key. letting them fall
| away and die in most heartrending
| wall
| This keening is undoubtedly a relic
| from pagan days. and indeed the
blind. unquestioning way in which so
many customs are chung to make it
| easy to believe that they date back
to remote times. The question is
| whether in these material days the
fact of their having been chung to so
| tenaciously, without any reason hav-
ing been assigned for them, will not
lead TO their being abandoned alto
| gether.
| For instance, lately going into a
house where a child lay dead, we
| found the furniture all turned up
| side down, chairs and tables alike
standing with their legs in the air.
rs that to make more room for
people coming to the wake?" we in
| CURED of woman standing near.
| "Sorra room. daughter" was the
| reply. IT'S just fashion we have. "
| But why?' we insisted. What is
| the reason"
| mot know do l. know" she con-
fessed. 'Mavbe the corpse's father
could be telin,'
| But neither from the corpse
| father nor from anyone else have
we been ables TO discover any ex-
PLANTATION of a singular custom that
| is not confined to Connemara alone.
| or late years wakes had been
made such excuses for drinking that
they have been much discountenanc-
| ed, and in certain dioceses they have
| gone back to being what they origin
| ally We're, the watching of a dead
persons family round the coffin. In
some places the rules against the in
discriminate distribution of drink at
wakes have been somewhat hard to
| enforce.
Thank God, then, that my man
Mick is dead and buried Decent