Folklore fragments from my grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly, collected in Forest Knolls, 1982
Death Superstition
The pictures fell off the wall and the glass broke. (Death.) All the boys— I’m getting superstitious. Ricky is already gone. There is still David, Kevin, and Guy. All those wars.
Before the English came, keening rituals
The voices moved up the hill. The women were crying when grandfather died. All week long it went on. We got used to it. All around his bed the birds singing, singing for Old Donough Sullivan Beare, he was the last of the clan.
The Sullivan Babe, keening ritual
I was facing the window, looking out, and I heard the voice of a woman crying, that was the banshee, it means fairywoman. The voice traveled from one row of trees to the next, and all along, down the houses, the Sullivan babe had died. It was the Rh factor, I think. I don’t know how many they had lost. It was an ongoing grief with no end in sight.
Sullivan Men, bog men and bog butter, and why you need to wash linen.
The Sullivan men were all so tall, square shoulder and handsome, my niece was married in England and the Sullivans standing beside her were all related. The isolated peninsula across the bay was known as the bear place. The boys looked for the cave where the bear skeleton was. Only the Bantry Sullivans are O Sullivan Bear. There was once a real bear. The skeleton is in the Irish museum that belonged to an earlier era. A huge skeleton of a man was found with it—when I was growing up. He was nearly 8 feet tall, you see, the bog preserved him. They used a special type of basket, a firkin and wrapped him up in linen. Linen absorbs the moisture. A firkin of butter was so many pounds worth – they took it into town. They used to sink the butter into the bogs for years. Flax grows on wet ground. That’s why you have to wash your linen tablecloths, to keep them alive.
Before the English came, keening rituals
The voices moved up the hill. The women were crying when grandfather died. All week long it went on. We got used to it. All around his bed the birds singing, singing for Old Donough Sullivan Beare, he was the last of the clan.
The Sullivan Babe, keening ritual
I was facing the window, looking out, and I heard the voice of a woman crying, that was the banshee, it means fairywoman. The voice traveled from one row of trees to the next, and all along, down the houses, the Sullivan babe had died. It was the Rh factor, I think. I don’t know how many they had lost. It was an ongoing grief with no end in sight.
Sullivan Men, bog men and bog butter, and why you need to wash linen.
The Sullivan men were all so tall, square shoulder and handsome, my niece was married in England and the Sullivans standing beside her were all related. The isolated peninsula across the bay was known as the bear place. The boys looked for the cave where the bear skeleton was. Only the Bantry Sullivans are O Sullivan Bear. There was once a real bear. The skeleton is in the Irish museum that belonged to an earlier era. A huge skeleton of a man was found with it—when I was growing up. He was nearly 8 feet tall, you see, the bog preserved him. They used a special type of basket, a firkin and wrapped him up in linen. Linen absorbs the moisture. A firkin of butter was so many pounds worth – they took it into town. They used to sink the butter into the bogs for years. Flax grows on wet ground. That’s why you have to wash your linen tablecloths, to keep them alive.
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