The Easter Cycle comprises a period of fasting, purification and spiritual renewal which culminates in joyful celebration of Christ’s Resurrection. In this short post it is only possible to sketch a very brief outline of some of the popular customs and practices which characterise the Easter observances in Irish tradition, which were, in the main, of a form similar to those practiced across Europe more widely. First, a few observations concerning language and terminology associated with the feast.
Terminology
The origins of the word ‘Easter’ come to us from a short entry in a single source, an early medieval text in Latin titled ‘The Reckoning of Time’, penned in the 8th century by the monk, scholar, and saint, Venerable Bede. An entry in Bede’s treatise concerns the names of the months as common among the Anglo Saxons, in which he observes that: ‘Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.’[1] Unlike its Old English equivalent, the Irish language word for Easter, namely Cáisc, references the Paschal season more directly, stemming as it does from Ancient Greek Páskha and Hebrew Pesach (meaning ‘Passover’). Indeed, though somewhat thin on the ground these days, it was not uncommon in Ireland in former times for boys born around Easter to be named after the feast. You may have come upon such a fellow in your travels, bearing as he will the name of Pascal.
Fasting
The Easter Cycle involves a forty day period of fasting and prayer known in English as Lent, and in Irish as Carghas, from Old Irish Corgus after the Latin Quadragesima meaning ‘the fortieth’. References to early Christian fasting practices can be found in Irish tradition beyond the confines of Easter however, embedded as they are in the names given to the days of the week in the Irish language. Wednesday is in Irish Dé Céadaoin which comprises céad+ aoine meaning ‘first fast’. Friday, Dé hAoine, means simply ‘day of fasting’, with Thursday, Déardaoin, stemming from Old Irish etar-dá-óin meaning ‘between two fasts’. Regular fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays (which still form part and parcel of life for the world’s Orthodox Christians) are no longer commonly observed in Ireland. References of this sort however offer hints, hidden in plain sight, of the depth of early Christian tradition on Ireland’s cultural inheritance.
Ash Wednesday
The Lenten fast commences in Ireland on Ash Wednesday, and on the morning of this day members of each household would attend the church to receive blessed ashes. These ashes were at times made from turf embers burnt at home for the occasion and brought to the church, or were made by the burning of blessed palm kept over from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. The ashes were blessed, being applied by the priest to the foreheads of the laity in an ashen Sign of the Cross which was worn on the brow for the day. Blessed ashes were also brought home from the church, for the benefit of those who could not attend in person that morning.
Shrove
Ash Wednesday was preceded by Shrove Tuesday, which is more commonly known today as ‘Pancake Tuesday’. In parts of Europe and Latin America, Shrovetide celebrations gave rise to the raucous festivity of the carnival (the folk-etymological interpretation of which means literally ‘flesh, farewell!’) Irish celebrations were somewhat more understated however, involving mere pancakes as a way in which the last store of eggs in the home could be used prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes aside, Shrovetide was in former times, also the traditional period for marrying. Indeed, those in the community who had not married by the end of Shrove and the commencement of Lent, would generally not do so until the next year. Many unfortunate singles, young and old, were therefore marked out by the community with varying forms of teasing and ridicule at this time. Some had salt thrown at them in order to ‘preserve’ and ‘keep’ them for the coming year, and others were marked with chalk outside the church, on ‘Chalk Sunday’ (the first Sunday in Lent). This first Sunday in Lent was often known in former times as ‘Puss Sunday’, from the Irish pus (a pouty or sulky expression), or ‘Smut Sunday’ from the Irish smúit (meaning gloom or despondency) as the unmarried (and, it might be added, now chalk-covered) singletons of the district would likely have a sour and dismal countenance upon their faces at this time.
Lent
The Lenten fast was observed by our forebears with much greater strictness than is the case today. Animal products (excluding at times fish and shellfish) were not eaten or used in the preparation of foods during Lent, and many people would refrain from socialising, dancing, drinking, smoking, playing music, card-playing or attending plays at this time. Kevin Danaher, writing in his classic ‘The Year in Ireland’ notes that: ‘For the average farming family which enjoyed some degree of frugal comfort, the Lenten fast meant a small meal of dry bread, or porridge, and black tea in the morning and again in the evening, and a midday dinner of potatoes seasoned with fish or onions. On the coast, shellfish and edible seaweed appeared as a relish with the potato meal. Instead of the usual sweet or sour milk, water, to which a handful of crushed oats was added and left to stand until the fermentation of the grain gave the beverage a sour taste, was drunk.’[2]
The reference to oats as a milk substitute is interesting. Indeed, forms of oat ‘milk’ – so popular today – are no recent introduction to the Irish diet. The following account in our Main Manuscript Collection, collected from county Wexford by Mary B. Dunphy, and titled ‘An old fashioned drink from Oatmeal, made by the old women’ attests that oats, having been steeped in water, strained, steeped again and left for several hours, were made into an oatmeal ‘milk’ which was put in tea during the Lenten fast, noting that ‘This makes a grand nutritious drink’ but that ‘The people of today would not use it.’ How things change!
Holy Week
The Sunday before Easter, known as Palm Sunday, commemorates Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and marks the beginning of His Passion. In Ireland, sprigs of blessed ‘palm’ (often consisting of conifer, spruce or yew) were brought from the church and placed above the door of the home on this day, where they were kept for the year and would protect the occupants. The Wednesday of Holy Week is known as ‘Spy Wednesday’, which commemorates Christ’s betrayal, and a popular religious tale told in Ireland regarding this day relates how a man, out sowing wheat in his field one day, met Jesus as he fled the Pharisees and Sadducees. Christ’s disciples told the man that if anyone should come after them, to give the answer that he last saw them on the day he was out sowing wheat in his field. The next day, the man was astonished to see that his field of seed had ripened overnight, and was now golden, and ready for reaping. When asked by the authorities of Jesus’ whereabouts, the man replied that he hadn’t seen Him since the day he sowed the wheat. The cockroach however, poking his head out from the ground, shouted ‘Yesterday, yesterday!’ The earwig likewise shouted ‘Quickly, quickly!’ while the beetle exclaimed ‘Woe, woe!’ For betraying Christ in this way, we are told, cockroaches and earwigs alike were always disliked. Beetles, however, were looked on more kindly by the people for having been merciful. An Irish language version of this tale from our manuscripts can be read here.
Mac na hÓige Slán!
Another popular tale told at this time concerns Christ’s Resurrection. It was at times related as having taken place between Judas and his wife, and on other occasions being told of the Pharisees and Sadducees, as they sat by the fire around a pot in which a cockerel was being cooked, while Christ lay in the tomb. When one in the company asked, ‘Is there any danger that He’ll rise again?’ another answered, ‘no more than the poor bird that’s boiling in the pot.’ At which, the cockerel, in anticipation of Christ’s Resurrection, leapt from the pot exclaiming ‘Mac na hÓige Slán! Mac na hÓige Slán!’ (‘The Son of the Virgin is Safe! The Son of the Virgin is Safe!’) Indeed, this remains the same call the cockerel makes each morning, ever since that moment.
The author, folklorist and first archivist of the Irish Folklore Commission Seán Ó Súilleabháin, writing on the enormous popularity of Religious Tales as a genre in Irish tradition, observed that ‘Strange though many of these tales may seem to the modern reader, they were listened to with deep interest by our forefathers, and the unusual happenings described in them were generally accepted as possible by an unsophisticated audience. Indeed, I have heard stories of this nature listened to with emotion by Gaeltacht audiences, as if they were believed to describe real happenings; I saw tears stream from the eyes of one old woman as she narrated a traditional religious tale.’[3] This small passage in Seán’s book, regarding the old woman’s tears as she recounts her story, has always stayed with me, and still moves me.
Easter Sunday
Let us end at the beginning (God bless you who have made it this far!) The first Easter fire was lit in Ireland by St. Patrick, on Slane Hill, county Meath, in the year 433, in defiance of the pagan king Laoghaire. A popular Easter custom in more recent times in Ireland saw parents and their little ones similarly ascending to heights and hills in the locality, not to light fires in defiance of pagan kings mind, but to watch the rising sun which, it was said, could be seen dancing at dawn on Easter Sunday morning, in exaltation at Christ’s victory over death.
Photograph of Slane Abbey, county Meath, taken by Jonny Dillon, 2025
I fear I have already covered too much in this post, and yet there is so much more to say, and much I would like to cover on this topic. Now, just a few days from Easter, our journey on the hard and toilsome road to Golgotha is not yet at an end. Courage! Just a little further until we too might exclaim with wonder ‘Mac na hÓige Slán!’, tasting Life and partaking in the Resurrection that is yet to come. Joy!
This post was written by Jonny Dillon, Interim Director, National Folklore Collection
[1] Bede, The Reckoning of Time, trans. Faith Wallis, Liverpool University Press (2025) pg. 54
[2] Kevin Danaher, The Year in Ireland, Cork, Mercier Press, Cork (1972) pg. 55
[3] Seán Ó Súilleabháin, Storytelling in Irish Folk Tradition, Cork (1973) pg. 41
Title: Irish Gaeilge ‘The Son of the Virgin is Safe!’