Donal Hickey: How to celebrate the first day of summer — the traditional way

You also have meteorological summer on June 1 and astronomical summer on June 21 but let's go with May 1 and get the summer started

The summit of the Paps of Anú, on the border between Cork and Kerry. The sacred breast-shaped summits are dedicated to Anú — the goddess of fertility and abundance. Picture: Valerie O'Sullivan

Once upon a time, the nation knew summer had arrived when a recording of the hymn, 'Bring Flowers Of The Rarest', by Scottish tenor priest Canon Sydney MacEwan was played on the late Gay Byrne’s popular morning radio programme, on May 1.

Most people accept summer begins on May Day and the ancient Celtic festival of Bealtaine, heralding summer, was celebrated on this day. Not everyone agrees, however. Met Eireann and Met UK say summer starts on June 1, going on meteorological seasons based on annual temperatures.

Others maintain it commences on June 21, the summer solstice and longest day of the year. That’s the astronomical summer, based on the position of the earth in relation to the sun.

Let’s go with May 1. A huge amount of folklore surrounds this date, some of it stretching back to pagan and druidic times. People visiting neighbours’ houses would ‘bring summer with them’, bunches of wildflowers and tree branches which would decorate homes until they withered.

Many May traditions were linked to farming and fertility, with lots of pisheógs, or tricks which might bring bad luck on neighbours with whom there may have been a falling-out.

The late folklorist, Dan Cronin, who lived under the Paps Mountains along the Cork/Kerry border, recalled how the cuckoo’s call was ominous on May Day — if heard on your right ear, good luck was on the way; the opposite if heard on the left ear.

Some people would collect May morning dew from a neighbour’s land and so bring the neighbour’s luck with them. Also, young girls would rise early that morning and rush into the fields to wash their faces with dew for beautification purposes. “To maintain its beautifying power, the dew should not be wiped off," Cronin wrote in his book, In The Shadow Of The Paps.

A stone fort dating to pagan times, known locally as 'The City', or Cathair Crobh Dearg in Irish, lies in the foothills of the Paps, near Rathmore. Observing tradition, people still go there, on May 1, to pray, with some taking home water from a well, believing it to have special powers.

They use the water for blessing animals and some people drink it, despite warnings of widespread water pollution.

A few years ago at The City, I saw a man busily handing bottles of water from the well to a line of waiting people. When asked if he had any worries about drinking it, he feigned irritation.

“Not a bit in the world,’’ he replied without a care. “Shure the people before us drank it and it didn’t do ‘em any harm!"