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Irish America magazine - Aug/Sept '08 issue: The Global Irishman, In the Name of the Fada, Chicago and the Irish, Hannah’s Descendants, Roots: The Marvelous McDonaghs, Slainte: Dancing at Lughnasa, Review of Books, Ashley Davis - Finding Herself Through Her Past
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 Dancing
at Lughnasa
August may be a sleepy month in most places on the planet, but the
opposite is true in Ireland, writes Edythe Preet.
Of all the months of the year, only August has no ‘official’ holiday. That’s
poor marketing if you ask me. Holidays generate more ‘stimulus’ to the
economic calendar than any paltry government ‘rebate’ could ever engender.
Granted, there’s a flurry of back-to-school buys but academic purchasing
doesn’t hit full momentum until September. To fill the void, I suggest
adding another Irish celebration to the wildly successful duo of Halloween
and St. Pat’s Day. That would be the year’s first harvest festival, Lughnasa.
Doing so would rank the holiday marketers on a par with George Lucas who
morphed the Sword-of- Light-wielding Celtic warrior Lugh Samildanach (The
Many-Skilled) into the light-saber-wielding Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker.
Long, long ago in an Ireland not so far away, there lived the magical Tuatha
De Danann and their enemies, the evil Fomorians. It had been predicted that
the Fomor king, Balor of The Evil Eye, would be killed by his grandson. When
his daughter gave birth to Lugh, who had been sired by a prince of the
Tuatha De Danann, Balor ordered the child’s death. But Lugh was hidden away
and raised by foster parents.
Years later, as the Tuatha De Danann prepared for war with the Fomorians,
Lugh arrived and demanded a role in the fray on the grounds that he had
mastered every known skill. The Tuatha chieftain, Nuada of the Silver Hand,
welcomed him and they set out to do battle. When Balor turned his Evil Eye
on Nuada and slew him, Lugh fulfilled the prophecy by hurling a bolt of
lightning from his sword through Balor’s Evil Eye, destroying him and the
whole Fomorian army.
Like Star Wars, Celtic mythology centered on opposing forces – light and
dark, good and evil, birth and death, planting and harvest. When the crops
were mature, they were cut down, dying so that the people might survive.
Lugh, who personified the conflict in opposing forces, has symbolized
harvest throughout Celtic history.
Before ‘early’ crops were developed, July was known as the Hungry Month.
Food stores put away from the previous year were dwindling and rations were
meager. But as summer drew to its close, the bounty of field and furrow was
finally ready for harvest. In pre-Christian times this abundance was
celebrated at Lughnasa, the full moon between summer solstice and the
autumnal equinox, with market festivals, music, dancing, horse races, and
‘handfastings’ – trial marriages that would last a year and a day with the
option of making the union permanent or ending the partnership amicably.
As late summer is the time when wild blueberries appear, the Sunday before
Lughnasa – Bilberry Sunday – has long been the day for young folk to climb
the countryside’s rolling hills and gather the fruit.
After Christianity arrived in Ireland, grain from the first threshing was
ground up and baked into special loaves of bread that were taken to church
and blessed at a ‘hlafmaesse’ – an Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘loaf-mass’
which over time shortened to Lammas. Once potatoes were introduced to
Ireland, even the poorest folk could grow a subsistence crop in a tiny
cottage garden and the ‘first fruits’ custom was transferred to the humble
spud which conveniently produced a crop of tiny new potatoes just in time
for the August harvest celebrations.
George Lucas is not the only writer who has been inspired by the importance
of Lugh in Irish folk tradition. On April 24, 1990, Dancing at Lughnasa
premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Written by Brian Friel, the
production is a memory play in which the central character, Michael Evans,
recounts the events of August 1936 when he was a seven-year-old fatherless
child staying with his mother and her four sisters at the family cottage in
Donegal. In the shadow of the approaching harvest celebration honoring Lugh,
the god of light and fire and music and dance, the women of the house share
such strong bonds of love and courage in moments of joy as well as loss that
the memory of them dancing and singing lives with Michael all his life. When
Dancing at Lughnasa was produced on Broadway in 1992, it won the Tony award
for best play. In 1998, the play was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep
as the eldest sister.
While only a few pre-Christian Celtic celebrations have withstood the
passage of time, the Irish have made merry at the harvest festivals of
Lughnasa and Lammas for thousands of years, perhaps because until only
recently Ireland’s primary industry was agriculture. Today both festivities
are wildly popular summer events in several places around the island.
On the Dingle Peninsula, Feile na Lunusa is a celebration of surf and turf,
combining the bounty of both land and sea. Ballyhugh, Co. Cavan marks
Lughnasa with a full week of music concerts and ceilis, step and house
dancing, and traditional craft workshops. The Ould Lammas Fair at
Ballycastle, Co. Antrim is the biggest and longest-running harvest event.
Dating from the seventeenth century when the McDonnells of Antrim
distributed food to the needy, it is renowned for two local specialties:
Dulse, an edible local red seaweed, and Yellow Man, a sugary confection that
resembles honeycomb.
While not specifically harvest festivals, several other of Ireland’s August
happenings bear noting. At the quirky Puck Fair in Killorglin, Co. Kerry the
townsfolk crown a goat ‘king’ to commemorate the day that a herd of goats
ran amuck through the village warning the people of Cromwell’s advance on
their region. The weeklong Galway Races draw horseracing fans from around
the world to gape and wager on Ireland’s magnificent thoroughbreds. And
last, but certainly not least, fine fillies of the human kind vie for top
honors at the Rose of Tralee beauty pageant. August may be a sleepy time in
most places on the planet, but the opposite is certainly true of Ireland.
Someone should tell the Madison Avenue marketing mavens they missed this
particular boat. Sláinte!
RECIPE
Blueberry Cobbler
(Note: This recipe can easily be doubled and baked in a 9x13-inch baking
pan.)
3/4 stick butter
3/4 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
3/4 cup milk
2 cups blueberries (frozen is ok)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
cinnamon
nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350
Melt butter in 8-inch square baking dish. Set aside. In a clean bowl, mix
next five batter ingredients. Pour batter in dish. Sprinkle blueberries on
top (add chopped walnuts if you like your cobbler crunchy). Dust with
cinnamon and nutmeg. Put the cobbler on the middle shelf of the oven and
bake 35-40 minutes.
–Recipe by Edythe Preet
The Ould Lammas Fair
by John Henry MacAuley
At the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle long ago
I met a pretty colleen who set me heart a-glow. She was smiling at her daddy
buying lambs from Paddy Roe
At the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O.
Sure I seen her home that night
When the moon was shining bright
From the ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O.
Chorus:
At the Ould Lammas Fair, boys, were you ever there?
Were you ever at the Fair In Ballycastle-O?
Did you treat your Mary Ann to some Dulse and Yellow Man
At the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O?
In Flanders fields afar while resting from the War
We drank Bon Sante to the Flemish lassies O.
But the scene that haunts my memory is kissing Mary Ann,
Her pouting lips all sticky from eating Yellow Man
As we passed the silver Margy and we strolled along the strand
From the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O.
(Repeat Chorus)
There’s a neat little cabin on the slopes of fair Knocklayde.
It’s lit by love and sunshine where the heather honey’s made
With the bees ever humming, and the children’s joyous call
Resounds across the valley as the shadows fall.
Sure I take my fiddle down and my Mary smiling there
Brings back a happy mem’ry of the Lammas Fair.
(Repeat Chorus)
Note: This well-known ballad was composed by John Henry “The Carver”
MacAuley, a skilled bog-oak carver. Born on a farm in Glenshesk, he was
expected to follow in the farming tradition but when he was a child, he met
with an accident that left him crippled. MacAuley was a gifted and
well-known fiddle player.
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