Irish traditions - those under threat or already extinct?

whisky_galore

The enormous pilgrimages to Knock.
iirc, Irish Rail ran their final special train for pilgrims last year from Wexford to Claremorris.

whisky_galore

Handball alleys, see a lot of disused and derelict ones. Must have been popular at one point.

Ballrooms/dance halls, usually in villages or even middle of nowhere locations. No-one would support a place that had just a mineral bar now!

Marching bands; fife and drum, brass, silver and pipe bands. There was an explosion of those around the Gaelic revival and afterwards.
Even large towns struggle to have a band of any sort now.

The creamery as a meeting place.

Blacksmithing as a widespread occupation.

Pixel Eater

whisky_galore wrote: »

Handball alleys, see a lot of disused and derelict ones. Must have been popular at one point.

Ballrooms/dance halls, usually in villages or even middle of nowhere locations. No-one would support a place that had just a mineral bar now!

Even the word 'mineral' for 'soft drinks' is rarely used now.


Handball is still popular(ish) in Meath/South Cavan. GAA don't seem to care much about it; handball should consider breaking away.

whisky_galore

Pixel Eater wrote: »

Handball is still popular(ish) in Meath/South Cavan. GAA don't seem to care much about it; handball should consider breaking away.

Possibly because it doesn't lend itself to mass media and making money.

laoch na mona

bands are still hanging in their, particularly republican bands

Pixel Eater

whisky_galore wrote: »

Possibly because it doesn't lend itself to mass media and making money.

Ironically it's the most international of our Gaelic games; a good player could actually make some money out of it playing in America.

Jellybaby1

Plenty of brass/silver bands still around. I sometimes see them over the summer months at different outdoor venues, parks, etc. I don't see them march much any more though. Marching whilst playing an instrument and not tripping over, is quite a skill! I remember years ago seeing marching bands in the St. Patrick's Day Parade and the teenagers running alongside trying to throw fag ends into the open end of instruments.

whisky_galore

Having been involved in a band there are so many distractions, weekends away with parents and other activities now it's very hard to get children interested. A few parents tended to use it as a sort of child-minding service.

The events that used be a band's bread and butter have been killed off with insurance rates, changing public tastes and lack of funding. Now there's just St Patrick's day and little else.

Add to that the usual infighting and bust-ups typical of many a voluntary organisation.

Carlos Orange

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

Funny enough language wise the Welsh have had theirs recently. 19% of Welsh people can speak it fluently, up form whatever it was in the 90s

1991 - 18.5%
2001 - 20.8%
2004 - 21.7%
2011 - 19%

Seems more like statistical noise than anything else.

mikemac2

There used to be a huge network of creameries all over the country . An area of a few villages may have their own.

You bring the milk there and the large creamery in the town will arrange to collect and centralise it all. The way is was, your horse & trap (later your jeep) can manage this but nobody has time to be travelling 20 mile round trip to deliver milk

These are long since gone and only big operations exist. The creamery in our parish closed over 30 years ago, the land was sold off and a local built a house. The site is still called the creamery

whisky_galore

mikemac2 wrote: »

There used to be a huge network of creameries all over the country . An area of a few villages may have their own.

You bring the milk there and the large creamery in the town will arrange to collect and centralise it all. The way is was, your horse & trap (later your jeep) can manage this but nobody has time to be travelling 20 mile round trip to deliver milk

These are long since gone and only big operations exist. The creamery in our parish closed over 30 years ago, the land was sold off and a local built a house. The site is still called the creamery

I think with the numbers of cows on farms now, it made more sense for a milk lorry to collect it from the farmers rather than farmers bringing it in to be processed. Only so much you can carry in churns or even a tank towed with a jeep.
It was manageable with the milk produced from 10-40 cows, but with 100 or more not so much.

This and the amount of things that are mechanised now means farmers don't meet their neighbours as much as they used to.

Pixel Eater

So many of us have highlighted many of the tradition that are on the wane or downright extinct. The next question is: what can be done about it? Do we simply accept this is part of 'modernity' or do we try to preserve some of them?

6541

Bonfires night is definitely on the wan. Its probably a good thing as well.

Water John

Some traditions are very old and may have medieval or even pagan roots.
But others are only two generations old. The creameries were only set up in the late 19C early 20C.

On the bonfire, one area I know have developed the ritual of young people throwing their old school books and uniforms in the fire. Don't know how it started but has revived Bonfire night.

whisky_galore

6541 wrote: »

Bonfires night is definitely on the wan. Its probably a good thing as well.

I agree. It's only an excuse to burn domestic rubbish now, not so good in tinder dry conditions either.

whisky_galore

Pixel Eater wrote: »

So many of us have highlighted many of the tradition that are on the wane or downright extinct. The next question is: what can be done about it? Do we simply accept this is part of 'modernity' or do we try to preserve some of them?

It's up to people themselves whether they want to preserve traditions.

One of the more infuriating things about Ireland is the 'somebody should do something' attitude, expecting the government, the council or some other group to do the thing they're not bothered doing themselves.

Pixel Eater

whisky_galore wrote: »

It's up to people themselves whether they want to preserve traditions.

One of the more infuriating things about Ireland is the 'somebody should do something' attitude, expecting the government, the council or some other group to do the thing they're not bothered doing themselves.

While I agree with your second point, people expecting someone else to do it, it's not that simple. In most spheres (health, transport, housing etc.) there is a definite entity - the Government of the day/State agencies - that already exists that could potential do something.


In terms of culture and tradition it's a lot harder to promote something as there is usually no clear authority to help.

pedroeibar1

Pixel Eater wrote: »

While I agree with your second point, people expecting someone else to do it, it's not that simple. In most spheres (health, transport, housing etc.) there is a definite entity - the Government of the day/State agencies - that already exists that could potential do something.

Well that is a total contradiction. It is perfectly simple, government/state agencies have got involved because there is a need. Sadly that has created for too many a state of dependency, an unwillingness to fend for oneself and a huge sense of entitlement.

Traditions that are becoming extinct are feelings of self–worth, of pride in doing a job well, of a degree of self-sufficiency, of family where there is a unit that is cohesive and self-supporting. All those are being replaced by whingers and spongers, those who want to make a fast buck for the least possible effort, those who expect unlimited hand-outs to support a lazy lifestyle and those who believe they have a right to produce as many children by different parents at the cost of those who pay taxes.

Pixel Eater wrote: »

In terms of culture and tradition it's a lot harder to promote something as there is usually no clear authority to help.

No it’s not a lot harder. It always was hard, but people ‘back then’ just did it by getting of their ar$e s and not making excuses.

Water John

Pedro are you bringing your regular hobby horse to this forum too? It's a bit of a stretch but you tried to link.

riffmongous

Let's keep this within the remit of History & Heritage everyone

laoch na mona

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

whingers and spongers, those who want to make a fast buck for the least possible effort, those who expect unlimited hand-outs to support a lazy lifestyle and those who believe they have a right to produce as many children by different parents at the cost of those who pay taxes.

QUOTE]
'
Is that a Charles trevelyan quote? he did talk about the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people'

Or Gerald of Wales who said of the Irish

"This is a filthy people, wallowing in vice. Of all peoples it is the least instructed in the rudiments of the faith. They do not yet pay tithes or first fruits or contract marriages. They do not avoid incest."

Or Edmund Spenser

"Marry those be the most barbaric and loathy conditions of any people (I think) under heaven...They do use all the beastly behaviour that may be, they oppress all men, they spoil as well the subject, as the enemy; they steal, they are cruel and bloody, full of revenge, and delighting in deadly execution, licentious, swearers and blasphemers, common ravishers of women, and murderers of children"

Basically you have used a typical colonial English description of the Irish to attack those you see as beneath you.

pedroeibar1

laoch na mona wrote: »

Is that a Charles trevelyan quote? he did talk about the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people'

Or Gerald of Wales who said of the Irish

"This is a filthy people, wallowing in vice. Of all peoples it is the least instructed in the rudiments of the faith. They do not yet pay tithes or first fruits or contract marriages. They do not avoid incest."

Or Edmund Spenser

"Marry those be the most barbaric and loathy conditions of any people (I think) under heaven...They do use all the beastly behaviour that may be, they oppress all men, they spoil as well the subject, as the enemy; they steal, they are cruel and bloody, full of revenge, and delighting in deadly execution, licentious, swearers and blasphemers, common ravishers of women, and murderers of children"

Basically you have used a typical colonial English description of the Irish to attack those you see as beneath you.

Weird inference. Really, some chip on the shoulder there, laoch, but if you are going to take the Irish name of bog warrior you should be able to come out of the bog and factually debate on Irish tradition & heritage and not trot out a few trite and clichéd ad hominem remarks that are unrelated and totally unconnected to what I wrote.

What can you contribute on old Irish traditions and customs, or country life in the last century? Have you ever read Thackeray, or Carleton or the Halls on Irish traditions? What do you know of life before there was social welfare and the old age pension and the night of the big wind? Of the ancient Irish custom of ‘sick maintenance’ and how centuries before Galen and the Christian era, Ireland and India were the only two countries that cared for the sick? (The Germani for e.g. generally knocked them on the head.) Or how, later, that system was continued and melded into ’infirmaries’ in Irish monasteries? Or, in a later period, how the real Irish held onto their traditions and heritage and how they survived? Or how they were self-sufficient, occupied land and went to Mass and some to school and hoodwinked the ‘Saxon’? Are you aware of what they considered was both correct and ‘right’ socially? Or how Irish life was structured and restructured between for e.g. Cromwell and the Great Famine? Or how many Irish customs and traditions can be traced back to the Brehon laws, where the rights and duties of deoraid (i.e. non-urrad) differ and differ also with those of the muir-chuirthe (the foreigner from overseas)? Or how much of Irish tradition and custom descends from the trinity of rank, duty and privilege?

I think not, Laoch, no mention of any of that in your 'cut & paste' post, just as there is none of the word ‘duty’ in the vocabulary of today’s spongers. No system of dole back in traditional Ireland; those who were reluctant to work were not granted land by the leader of the tuath and instead put minding pigs on the mountain, and notions of ‘entitlement’ were quickly knocked on the head. That was the tradition, part of our heritage.

Pixel Eater

We (as in the nation) could start with our main festivals: St. Patrick's Day and Halloween. March 17th, despite being our national day, seems to be distinctly unIrish. The main parade in Dublin (with the exception of the effigy Ériu leading) seems to mostly consist of American marching bands and random floats. Shouldn't a more Irish theme be encouraged?

And Halloween has become totally Americanized; maybe try promote traditional aspects of the celebration. The Mexicans seemed to have changed their attitudes in this regards (well according to this article).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/31/mexicans-embrace-day-of-the-dead-spectacle-in-place-of-halloween

The Day of the Dead has the painted skull face as its symbol; Halloween has the carved pumpkin; maybe another symbol, like a stylised original turnip Jack'O'Latern could be used to represent the traditional festival? Or a banshee? Or other spirit from our folklore.

bobbyss

Saying the family rosary at night time is well and truly gone.

Going to confession?

Picture of JFK/Sacred Heart in house?

As per above somewhere, the stations in your house where neighbours who you don't know can have a nosey around.

The national anthem at about midnight on TV.

Water John

O'Donnell Abu in the morning, opening the Radio station. I think the first 24 hour radio by RTE was because of the Buttavent train crash. The Cork studio with Alf McCarthy stayed on air.

laoch na mona

bobbyss wrote: »

Saying the family rosary at night time is well and truly gone.

Going to confession?

Picture of JFK Sacred Heart in house?

to be fair they are catholic traditions that only became common in the late 1800s

The JFK was only a thing for a short while

whisky_galore

bobbyss wrote: »

Picture of JFK/Sacred Heart in house?

Wonder would they have hung up a picture of JFK if Holy Catholic Ireland knew about all the bed-hopping?

whisky_galore

Pixel Eater wrote: »

We (as in the nation) could start with our main festivals: St. Patrick's Day and Halloween. March 17th, despite being our national day, seems to be distinctly unIrish. The main parade in Dublin (with the exception of the effigy Ériu leading) seems to mostly consist of American marching bands and random floats. Shouldn't a more Irish theme be encouraged?

And Halloween has become totally Americanized; maybe try promote traditional aspects of the celebration. The Mexicans seemed to have changed their attitudes in this regards (well according to this article).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/31/mexicans-embrace-day-of-the-dead-spectacle-in-place-of-halloween

The Day of the Dead has the painted skull face as its symbol; Halloween has the carved pumpkin; maybe another symbol, like a stylised original turnip Jack'O'Latern could be used to represent the traditional festival? Or a banshee? Or other spirit from our folklore.

Since the parade originated in the States and not here, it would be hard to divorce the American elements from it, esp. as people expect (and presumably want) to see US marching bands in it.
Re Halloween, it's up to people themselves what form they want it to take, if the majority want to 'trick or treat', so be it. You can't force them to do otherwise.

What would be a truly Irish St Patrick's parade? People carrying blazing sods of turf on pikes in formation? I would like to see more Macnas type things, but as everyone knows the arts are woefully underfunded here so groups like that operate on a wing and a prayer.

Pixel Eater

whisky_galore wrote: »

Since the parade originated in the States and not here, it would be hard to divorce the American elements from it, esp. as people expect (and presumably want) to see US marching bands in it.
Re Halloween, it's up to people themselves what form they want it to take, if the majority want to 'trick or treat', so be it. You can't force them to do otherwise.

What would be a truly Irish St Patrick's parade? People carrying blazing sods of turf on pikes in formation? I would like to see more Macnas type things, but as everyone knows the arts are woefully underfunded here so groups like that operate on a wing and a prayer.

It may have originated in America but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was to be almost totally American in nature, it's our national day after all. You mentioned Macnas; they have actually done St. Patrick's Day parades before. We have a rich heritage, mythology and folklore to draw upon that could inspire some truly amazing floats and street performances.



It's hard to garner people's taste in regards to these old traditions due to the sheer amount of Anglo-American culture we are being bombarded with, essentially the reason these customs are being eroded. I'm sure most people would be approving of Irishising the parade or Halloween if it was promoted properly.


I don't get your mentality to be honest; you seem to somewhat bemoan the loss of our traditions on one hand yet almost take glee in dismissing any idea of resurrect them. Do you even want to see any of them return?


And I know your 'blazing sobs on a pike' was a jibe but a choreographed dance with that would be amazing!

theyoungchap

Pixel Eater wrote: »

It is indeed sad to see the passing of so much of our folk traditions. A previous poster mentioned about coming around to someone's house to play cards, even here the Irish game of 25, quite popular even in the recent past seem all be extinct.

I tried on here to see if I could find people in Dublin to play 25 and got no response, which is sad. It is sad that patience levels to learn a card game seem to be now replaced by mobile phones, WhatsApp, Facebook and other anti-social media.

One which I strongly lament is children playing music instruments, GAA - once the kids stop being needed to be babysat for an hour or two, the parents let them give up.

The saddest lost Irish tradition of all though? The ability to sit down and have a conversation with the distraction of looking at phones, beeping, etc. We have lost the gift of the gab and replaced it with the gift of half-listening and more interest in our phone than those whose company we are in.