Amhrán na Craoibhe

Background

(see A Hidden Ulster pp. 96-106 for detailed references and information)

St Moninne Churches at Killeavy site of the annual pattern to the holy well.

This is a seasonal summer song of calendar customs unique to the Oriel tradition. It has connections with the older seasonal festival of Bealtaine (May) which was held to celebrate the beginning of the summer half of the Celtic year. It was also entitled Lá Fhéile Blinne (St Moninne’s Feastday) and Ag a’ Phatrúin (At the Pattern) showing a connection between this song and the religious celebrations of the pattern of Blinne at Killeavy monastery on July 6.

This connection and overlapping of traditions was likely to have occurred when the Bealtaine and Lúnasa traditions were incorporated into the Christian celebrations of Feastdays and Patrons, possibly during the Middle Ages. It was collected in 1908 by Enrí Ó Muiríosa (AHU pp. 363-65) from Mrs Susan/Sarah Humphries (AHU pp.394-7) from Doctor’ Quarters Lislea. Co Armagh.

Enrí Ó Muireasa

The traditions and calendar customs associated with Bealtaine survived well into the early part of the twentieth century in Monaghan, south Armagh and in Louth as part of the local pattern, at Maytime and midsummer: ‘the Omeath patron was famous in old days and people came from all parts of Killeavy, Cooley and Lordship (and Faughart). The girls of the different townlands vied with each other in making dolls for this social occasion and the competition also led to faction fights.’ The dolls were called Babóg a’ Phátrúin, Craobha or Géaga (Pattern Dolly, Garland or Branch).

One source from Farney in Monaghan recalled that the song Babóg na Bealtaine (the May Doll) used to be sung by the youths and maidens on May Eve while they carried around the ‘May Baby’ from house to house. This song, Amhráin na Craoibhe, was, according to Sarah Humphreys, sung by the gathered crowd as they walked about carrying the craobh. Sarah explained that the craobh was a fancifully dressed artificial doll, effigy or garland.

According to Sarah Humphreys, the song was sung at the Killeavy pattern celebrations. Pattern is from the word ‘patron’ and was an annual commemoration on which parish churches were dedicated to the respective local saints. St Blinne, or Moninne, is the local patron saint in Killeavy where she once had a convent. The pattern, celebrated on her feastday, 6 July, was traditionally a day of entertainment, dancing, singing, matchmaking, rivalry and competition. Though the pattern was held for religious purposes, it incorporated the traditions of the older seasonal rituals with the lighting of bonfires and the carrying of the doll at the heart of the celebrations. The doll dressed in ribbons and other materials would be erected high on a pole or stick and carried around by groups of young women.

Michael J. Murphy (AHU pp. 383-4), the collector and folklorist from south Armagh, throws further light on the seasonal traditions associated with the local pattern of Forkhill: ‘the 9th of June was the date of a Garland or Pattern in Forkhill. This was a most amusing and extraordinary festival. A doll or effigy was set up on the top of a long pole. This doll was dressed, arrayed and finished off in the best possible manner by the party that conducted it. Each district or neighbourhood had its own effigy which was known as a ‘daw’. It was decorated with ribbons and dresses and other items of apparel, by the girls of the party. The various processions met or overtook one another as they went to the village. The rhyme went like this each party shouting its own: ‘Ho daw, hie daw, very good hee daw’. After rhyming those words one group began to say belittling words, one group began to say belittling remarks about the ‘daw’ of another, with that party replying. The whole affair was taken in good sport but not without some understandable concern and downheartedness on the part of some of the girls. For it was up to them to turn out and dress a ‘daw’ superior in every way to that being carried by a rival party. In a sense it was open competition of taste, imagination and initiative. Others carried cakes on a pole, which was subjected to similiar scornful and belittling comments. In the village all the ‘daws’ were stacked together and dancing and singing began.’

The ‘daw’ of the Forkhill pattern is apparently a corruption of dó – a single surviving word from the original and then forgotten haigh dó refrain in the Irish language, giving its local pronunciation, which had been sung while carrying the May Doll. (See AHU pp. 96-130 for references and more on seasonal songs and also the Omeath version, Ag a’ Phatrún)

Once a group was judged as having the finest doll, or garland, and to have ‘won the day’, they would then parade around singing, that they had ‘brought the summer’ with them. They then marched away in triumph carrying branches with flowers attached to them proclaiming and singing the song of joy or ‘We have brought the Summer in.’

These celebrations featured elements of song, drama and dance. According to the Dromintee folklore collector Michael J. Murphy (AHU 383-4), dancing took place locally on the mountain slopes, ‘on Johnston’s mountain at a level spot near the tower or at the ‘Two Big Rocks’ (on top of Carrickbroad Mountain). They danced on Slieve Gullion too, since they show a circular plate of green grass amid the heather trodden flat by feet many years ago.’ Beyond Mullaghban, in the hills, at the foot of Cashel Plantin’ is Cnoc a’ Damhsa (The Dancing Hill), which was also traditionally used for dancing.

                 Dancing on the ‘deck’ near Newry, County Armagh. c.1920

It is more than likely that this song was also connected to the dance. There is no direct evidence, however, that it was danced whilst being sung. But we do know that it was sung collectively during movement. Sarah Humphreys’ account tells that the song was sung by a group of young people while they were walking: ‘Dubhairt sí gurb é an ceol a chanfadh an sluagh, is iad ag siubhal thart leis an Chraobh Lá Fhéil Blinne’ (She said that it was the song which the group sang while walking around with the Garland/Doll on St Blinne’s Day. This song points to the survival locally of a very old tradition within living memory, linked to the most primitive type of carole and to ancient traditions of Maytime.

© Oriel Arts 2019