Donal Hickey: May customs so beautiful in their simplicity

People in West Cork placed long leaves of yellow, wild iris (known as 'flaggers') on doorsteps, window wills and kitchen furniture. On Cape Clear, bunches of flaggers were put into fishing boats for luck. Picture: iStock

One of our most cherished May customs must be the picking and bringing home of fresh wild flowers; so beautiful in its simplicity. A tradition of setting up May altars, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, continues in homes and schools.

With many people’s favourite month upon us, daisies, bluebells and buttercups speckle the landscape, a reminder of childhood days when we joyfully presented bunches of such flowers to our mothers and teachers for altars.

May is immersed in traditions relating to nature, growth and the outdoors in general. More than anything else, perhaps, it’s when we welcome summer.

All of which goes back to the ancient Pagan festival of Bealtaine when people brought greenery into their homes for protection, blessings and good luck. Around the West Cork town of Skibbereen, for example, some people still hang leaves, or plants, on their doors on May Day and the early part of the month.

Also in that blossom-filled part of the world at this time, people placed long leaves of yellow, wild iris (known as ‘flaggers’) on doorsteps, window wills and kitchen furniture. In Cape Clear, bunches of ‘flaggers’ were put into fishing boats for luck.

Leading folklorist Kevin Danaher found that, in most parts of Munster, it was more usual to pick and bring May boughs into houses — small branches of newly-leaved trees — rather than flowers. In much of County Cork, sycamore was the favourite bough.

“These May boughs were, like the flowers, used to decorate the kitchen, to lay on doorsteps and window ledges, or on the roofs of house and byre,’’ he wrote in The Year In Ireland.

They were also, in places, set up in the farmyard, or in the fields, where they were held to guard against ill-luck and evil influence, particularly where branches of mountain ash were so used.

The minutiae of customs varied from place to place, with certain trees and bushes deemed lucky. Others were believed to be unlucky and, obviously, not allowed inside the door.

Another popular activity on May Eve was both painful and mischievous. On ‘nettlemas night’, boys went around with large bunches of nettles stinging their playmates and, sometimes, other people who happened to come along. On occasion, young maidens would sting their lovers in the same way.

The May bush was another tradition, still in vogue in parts of the Midlands, Connacht and Ulster, where people place a decorated bush outside their houses. Ribbons, rags and tinsel are usually hung from the bush.

Finally, many people will visit holy wells in May, where they pray and take water home with them: a living tradition.