Lá Fhéile Lúghnasa Sona Daoibh go léir

Lá Fhéile Lúghnasa Sona Daoibh go léir. Lá fhéile' translates as 'feast day', 'lá' is 'day'. Sona translates to 'happy'. Sort of. And, 'daoibh' means 'to youse'. Singular is ‘duit.’ And ‘go léir’ is an extra everybody and y’all thrown in for good measure. The ‘go’ is a timeless oddity sometimes translated as may (you) as in may you all have a right grand time. And if you wanted to toss some extra blessings in you’d tack on Beannachtaí to the front end of that sentence.

“Peace to sky. Sky to earth. Earth under sky, strength in each, a cup full, full of honey, mead in plenty. —Cath Tánaiste Maige Tuired (2nd Battle of Moytura).

And as promised, the second installment of Lúghnasadh. 

Lúnasa, the beginning of harvest season, technically begins Aug 7 because our modern calendar doesn’t quite jive or jibe if you prefer, with cross-quarter celebrations juxtaposed halfway  between the solstice and equinox. 

Lúghnasadh is one of four agrarian festivals, once called Brón Trogain (the earth’s sorrow), followed by Samhain, Imbolc and Beltane. The Welsh equivalent of Lúghnasadh is Gŵyl Awst, in Breton, Gouel Eost (August festival), and the English equivalent is Lammastide (I mentioned that last week). 

The beginning of the harvest season is called Lúnasa in modern Irish (also the name for August—no Caesar here!), Lùnastal, in Scots Gaelic, and: Luanistyn in Manx/Vannin. But it’s the same bringing in the sheaves party however it’s spelled.

Dedicated to the god Lugh Lámhfhada, Lugh of the Long Arm—master of all the arts, this end of summer celebration marks the beginning of harvest season, also referred to as Lammastide, and to the Tailteann Games. Lúghnasadh ( -násad means an assembly) was a time of visiting holy wells, with lots of feasting, fighting, and fu- I mean, matchmaking, and horse and cattle trading. Possibly some raiding too.

The earliest written reference recording the Games and festivities is during the 15th c. in the redaction of Tochmarc Emire ("the Wooing of Emer"). Writing came rather late to Ireland, a country steeped in oral tradition since time immemorial, during the early Medieval era—there was a lot of catching up to do to record and preserve the distant past. First came the threat of the Vikings to annihilate Irish culture, followed by the larcenous British Monarchy. My grandmother said, Sinn Féin: Ourselves, Alone. Or, We, Together are saving culture story by story, no matter how imperfectly told.

The Tailteann Games (ancestor to the Hightland Games) were held in commemoration of the death of Lugh’s foster-mother Tailtiu, an agrarian goddess, who died of exhaustion after single-handedly clearing the plains for agriculture. What? Nobody helped her? What’s with that? The Games were celebrated in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.  Most likely Wales too.

Many harvest games and rituals were observed during the three-day festival. It was the time of the agrarian goddess and the Greenman, a time of blessing of the First Fruits of harvest. Replenishing the earth. Corn dollies were made with the last sheaf of grain so that the spirit of the corn god had a place to winter over until they were turfed into the ground during the first plow. (Corn means grain, not maize. Think corm, if that helps.)

Ceremonial rituals included the cutting of the first sheaves of corn/grain,  First Fruits, a feast of the new food and bilberries (see Reek Sunday), a sacrificial bull, replaced by a bull calf, and a panto where Lugh secures the harvest and banishes Crom Dubh/ Cruach/ Dagda/ Balor, the god of pestilence and blight. (The dance of the rising and the falling gods). Some say the grain is represented by Eithne, there is always a beautiful, willful woman somewhere in the picture. Many of the harvest activities were celebrated on top of hills and mountains with bonfires galore.

“The custom of climbing hills and mountains at Lughnasadh has survived in some areas, although it has been re-cast as a Christian pilgrimage. The best known is the 'Reek Sunday' pilgrimage to the top of Croagh Patrick on the last Sunday in July. A number of fairs are also believed to be survivals of Lughnasadh, for example, the Puck Fair.” —Wiki

Puck Fair, Aonach an Phoic (Fair of the He-Goat) Ireland's oldest fair, is held in Killorglin, County Kerry. August 10–12. A wild goat is captured in the mountains, dragged down to the town square, caged, and crowned "King Puck" by a young schoolgirl, the "Queen of Puck.” The opening of the three-day Puck Fair is followed by a horse fair, and then a cattle fair to kick off the harvest season. 

The current Puck Fair dates back to 1613, when King James issued a decree allowing it. But the origins of the fair date back to the much older pan-Celtic festival of Lughnasa. The wild Kerry goat (a neolithic goat) is a pagan fertility symbol. You’d think they’d eat the goat, but no. Young girls and old goats. Hmmm. Baaaad. The origins of all these festivals predates Christianity. 

2017 Queen of the Fair, Caitlin Horgan, Reuters 

And there you have it. Eat pray love fight, wear some flowers in your hair, climb a mountain, snag and wrestle an ornery wild billygoat, kiss it, and then crown it, make first bread, or lunastain, bring in the harvest, stack the hay ricks, trade some horses and cattle, spit on your hand and shake on it to seal the deal, make a match, pay debts, eat first fruits (bilberries), feast on beef BBQ, dance around the bonfire and pray and party and drink some more. For what little we do know, we also know that John Barleycorn must die.

If you haven’t read Brian Friel’s memory play, loosely based on Friel's mother and aunts, set in fictional Ballybeg, ca. 1936, or seen the 1998 movie, Dancing at Lûnasa, with Meryl Streep, check it out.