Despite the vagaries of July's weather the beginning of August traditionally signals the start of the harvest season in Ireland. It marks the midpoint of the summer half of the year between May and November and is also the first of three Autumn months when the rays of the sun from Midsummer onwards dry out the green stalks and ears of corn and barley.
Next weekend children from all over are invited go to the top of Benaughlin Mountain to pick bilberries.
The children will then return to make taditional bilberry cakes and baskets.
Traditionally, the end of July and the start of August also heralded the performance of seasonal rites and festivities associated with celebrating the ripening and swelling of the first wild fruits of the harvest and the digging of the first crop of new potatoes. The first day of August in particular was one of the all important Celtic quarter days in the annual pastoral calendar and was called Lughnasadh in honour of the male sun god Lugh. It critically marked the end of all the waiting for the expected results of the forthcoming harvests, and, as with all four quarter days it was full of omens and deep rooted pagan customs.
Hugely popular amongst these were the festive processions and excursions to chosen hilltop sites in ones own locality to gather together the bilberries, the tiny blue/black round headed wild fruits that are the produce of low growing plants on heathery slopes.
The exact origins of the common task of gathering bilberries on the last Sunday in July known as Bilberry Sunday is now lost in the mists of antiquity but the joyous occasion obviously broke the daily routine of agricultural toil and was recognised as a legitimate licence for high spirited games and revelry involving dancing, picnicing, racing, eating and courtship.
Places such as Topped Mountain and Benlaughlin (Bin Mountain) had people flocking to its upland heights for a totally secular gathering of friendship to celebrate the first fruits of the year. Without these annual popular festivities that symbolically give thanks to the marriage between the land of its people all sorts of negative predictions would have ensued indicating both decay and greyness.
Bilberry day, therefore, was such an occasion for giving thanks for the first fruits of the season and a worthy festive celebration of the earths bounty whilst for others it was simply an ideal opportunity from on high to view the land below with pride and not a little relief.
Bilberries were also known as fraughans, blue berries, heatherberries, whortleberries or wineberries and the handpicking was a tedious business but the sense of communitas with everyone gathering in a common task and the hours of fun afterwards made the day a highly popular festive event until the 1960's.
Usually held on the last Sunday of July, Bilberry Sunday was also known as Height Sunday denoting the assembly points for the bilberry gatherers being the chosen hilltops that were often "topped off" with prehistoric monuments.
Garland Sunday was another name given to Bilberry Sunday and this was derived from ceremonial hoops of wild flowers and garlands made from stalks of corn that were worn by unmarried girls. Often, the garland hoops were taken to the graveyards where girls performed a dance to pay homage to the dead. Alternatively, the ceremonial Garlands were used to decorate wells, stone circles or the cairns on mountain tops. Here, the girls would sit with garlands strewn at their feet being touched for good luck by young men. As the day was a popular occasion for courtship young men did their part in showing off by weaving little wicker or rush baskets known as fairy or bilberry baskets for the gathering of bilberries. Alternatively, bilberry bracelets were slipped on to the intended's slim wrist in order to make romantic feelings known.
Bilberry Sunday and its excuse for frolicking in the heather was certainly a fixed time for matchmaking and, indeed, trail unions and trail marriages lasting until the next Bilberry Sunday were set in motion on the day.
On the evenings of Bilberry Sunday, the merrymaking would continue with the kindling of big bilberry night bonfires around which young men would run races. The more daring would leap over the fires in a show of strength and bravado.
Romance was kindled further at the bonfire setting with the baking and sharing of freshly made bilberry cakes by the young women and the honor of dividing them was given to some young couple about to be married or who had danced best on the evening in question.
Much licence was permitted for trails of strength at the Bilberry night bonfire which terminated the days proceedings and often, mock fights between young men were held to symbolise the victory of bloom over blight.
Varied used was made of bilberries (vaccinium myrtillis) such as bilberry wine, or the making of bilberry pies, bilberry jam or even they were used as a dye. Bilberries were often eaten for an aftercourse at the days celebratory meal of the first harvest when mashed with fresh cream and sugar. It was also known that mountainy people from Connaught were known as "Blackmouths" from their continued eating of ripened bilberries especially during the famine period.
Bilberry Sunday and the following day Lughnasadh had other linkages to seasonal rites. Often, land tenure and rights of pasture were settled on the first of August and a new loaf from the first corn was baked. At some places cattle were made to swim through streams and loughs into which lumps of butter had been cast to ensure the beasts would be rendered healthy during the rest of the year.
Laterly, Bilberry Sunday on Croagh Patrick in Mayo has become known as Reek Sunday celebrating Saint Patrick. Many folklorists would claim this to be a tenuous connection and a Christian substitution to try and give a deeply rooted pagan custom date a claimed Christian origin. Instead, the ancient Irish would claim that between the last Sunday of July and the First of August there was a battle between the male sun god Lugh and the Crom Dubh, the dark crooked god who first brought the secrets of cultivation to the Irish and who lived on a high hill.
