A chara,
I hope you had a wonderful Halloween with your family. Please let me know how it went. We loved it as always, the kids dressed up as a witch and a banshee and had a ball. My favorite part of it remains to be the 1st of November. It is the first day of the new year in the Old Irish Calendar and the first day of winter, a time to strengthen before spring and a time for the thinning of the veil between the living and the spirit world.
As I am writing to you, I am looking out my window at a group of rowan trees, each with the most beautiful colors against a soft grey sky. When winter sets in and all the storms come and blow those trees about, their roots grow deeper underground, strengthening those trees. To me that is what this season is all about, growing in ways unseen and strengthening ourselves.
I have so many beautiful traditions to share with you from my own home that I have been doing for years now. I keep a folder of them which I call the Turn of the Year. It started as a list of heritage practices I wanted to pass on to my children and it grew year by year as I began to write little notes on what we did and their delightful reactions, so that I could have it as a keepsake for my children. My husband used to kindly roll his eyes as I did some of these but now, he enjoys them with us or enjoys watching us go about them.
Today, November 1st in Ireland is All Saints Day and is also known as the Feast of All Saints. So tonight, I am doing dinner as usual but with that extra woman’s touch on our own feast. The fire will be lit, the candles will be burning, and the table will be set. After dinner, there will be dessert at the table with tea. After tea there will be a glass of whiskey poured for the grownups. Now for my favorite part. Golden time I call it. As November is the month of the dead, I will bring up our kids’ ancestors, their great grandparents, aunts and uncles, both alive and dead and trace back their gifts and talents through the family tree.
Last year’s story of “You know your grandmother on this side and your great grandmother on that side were excellent seamstress” led to both our young daughters taking up sewing lessons this year and finding a huge love for dressmaking. Tracing talents, gifts and interests such as music, cooking, storytelling, sport and healing back through the family helps me to reintroduce the family tree which we go through to give them a solid identity anchor in their life. It helps bring up new talents too, such as “your great-grandads brother could turn his hand to anything, from fishing to reupholstering sofa’s. There was nothing he couldn’t do if he had a go at it.” This helps me draw out of the girls anything they would like to try or any natural skills that we as their parents have observed in them that they might want to develop. Its always a lovely conversation.
I then bring it around to the topic of saints. Past generations would have revered saints. Still to this day I have found over the years that many Irish families have a preferred saint that they turn to when things get a bit rough. I have known one or two who have nothing to do with the church in any way but have one saint in mind that warms their soul. This is usual a saint that their mother or grandfather or such looked to. In my father’s family it is St. Joseph, the resonance of this saint has passed down at least four generations by now. In another of my relations houses it is Padre Pio, another is Mother Mary, for my grandmother it is St. Brigit and for my kids it is St. Edmund Rice, a relation on their father’s side.
When I brought them to their first sewing lesson held at a local parish hall, the door on their classroom read “Saint Edmund Rice”. They saw it as a sign that their great grandmother was encouraging their new hobby and that if they worked hard at it they might find that they had the same gift for dressmaking as she did. They sewed nonstop for three hours and have talked about sewing most days since. The other side of bringing up saints is to link back to the hard times their ancestors went through and how they might have found internal strength and fortitude. I use this as an annual way of bringing up resilience directly, it helps to introduce the Irish famine, emigration, the circle of life and appreciation for everything we have today. The conversation can go anywhere from here, but I always try to bring it back to their own inner resilience and where they can find strength within themselves. Just today I was speaking to someone who is going to a funeral where two young men, one twenty-one and the other twenty-three years old are burying their last remaining parent and grandparent. They do not have a parent figure now to guide them through some of the biggest decisions in life. In my own way, I use All Saints Day and Irish heritage to try to share an attitude of resilience and hope for the future on to my daughters.
We finish the evening by leaving the prayer card of our preferred saint on the hall table next to a little candle and say my dad’s favorite prayer which has now become our family prayer but that might not be for you. I always say, take what you want and leave the rest and I think that applies well here.
The second day of November is all Souls Day. You know how you and the kids set the coffee table for Santa Clause with a snack before you bring them to bed? Well, some of us in Ireland still carry out this tradition on all Souls Day but for the dead. This sounds strange perhaps but its honestly the loveliest tradition.
We would usually visit the graveyard where our relations and loved ones rested, give it a tidy and leave a candle burning. After talking to the kids about their ancestors and the family stories from the night before, we take out the family photograph album and show them some of their photographs. They love seeing resemblances and having a face to go with the stories. We then light a candle in the window and some people say the rosary for their dead. As my little girl is having her Holy Communion next year, being taught a decade of the rosary will start for us tomorrow as she has already tried to join in with it at a few funerals. We then set the table for our ancestor’s souls with water and a little food, perhaps porridge or some mashed potato and leave out some tea or sometimes a little whiskey. You then leave some more food outside for the faeries so as not to insult them by not inviting them to the feast. No matter what, you must not eat any of the food at all that is meant for the dead or the faeries. Some people even leave out cards or photographs too and it’s a great reason for passing on a card game or trick and an early night. Then we set the fire to burn low for the night and before bed swap out the candle for a battery one, which is a useful modern approach I am very grateful for. Traditionally you leave the back door unlocked too. I leave the window open just a little instead. There is a very old tradition that some more daring people do. You can scatter ash on the floor at the back door on All Souls Night. Now I don’t do this personally. The belief is that when you awake in the morning, if you find that there are footsteps in the ash (left by the dead) it means that someone in the house will die within the year. So, I skip that one, thank you very much.
In the morning you can tell your children that your deceased loved ones visited and that they had a great time. You can also say that their deceased loved ones are always close by and if they need them in the future, they can call upon them and they will be there.
There are many types of beings that are said to walk amongst us. You have fallen angels, the Sidhe (faeries), the evil spirits and the wandering souls and it is said that only blessed water protects from them so in November, an ancient blessing practice that we still do in our home is to bless the cars, the kids bikes and the doors, windows, and gates with blessed well water. I usually do this on St. Martin's Day, which falls on November 11th. It is also known as “Martinmas”. It was once widely celebrated in Ireland and families sacrificed a hen or a pheasant as an offering and sprinkled blood on the doorposts to bring blessings and protection. I do like to mark this day the old pagan way, so I cook a roast chicken and sprinkle the house with blessed water to protect those within it. This usually means a visit to collect fresh blessed well water, but I know that might not be available to you. If not, I learned this from my mother. You can collect and bottle regular water and whisper a blessing of your own choosing over it. If you can, you then leave it out overnight for the moonlight to glow upon it. A full moon is always best if you can manage it.
During November I look up different Irish heritage related winter festivals and activities with my family. It is such a cosy time of year to snuggle up with them and enjoy these. For example, next week I am going to see Kneecap with my parents and sister and will have a little Irish whiskey or two after to warm up. We also have a family reunion with my grandfathers 90th birthday this month. He is the very man that inspired this passion project of mine with his stories of catching and eating blackbirds taught to him by his big brother, the same man I mentioned earlier that could turn his hand to anything.
Irish pubs are made for November weather and traditional Irish music and Irish dance sessions in these pubs take on a special warmth that I describe as the “Saol suaimhneach” which means the peaceful life that alludes to a sense of a regular familiarity of faces, places, and comforts. I will be bringing my family to some of these to ready them up for their first Irish music lessons starting in February and to see if my kids would be interested in going to the family Riverdance show next year.
If you can sprinkle any of these in over the month of November, you are well on your way to passing on your old Irish heritage to the next generation or starting new heritage threads in your family’s life.
I wish you all the best. I must go and get the dinner started and the hot water on for Mr. Hynes after a long day. Take care in November with the thinning of the veil and I will write to you later in the month to get a start on the joys of an Old Irish Christmas.
Beir bua agus beannacht,
Róisín Hynes
Sliocht sleachta ar shliocht bhur sleachta.