Mooney.] dob [j^Iay 3, 



belief, its adoption as the national ensign dates from the time when Saint 

 Patrick used it to explain to the pagan Irish the mystery of the Trinity, 

 or three in one. In East Gal way and adjacent parts, the processions on 

 this day carry banners bearing representations of incidents in the tradi- 

 tional life of Saint Patrick, such as the baptism of Oisin, the banishing of 

 the snakes, etc. Everywhere men wear the shamrock in their hatbands, 

 while women and children fasten it in their hair or upon their breasts. 



Shrove Tuesday, the Lenten Season and Easter. 



The customs pertaining to the Lenten season, with the attendant festi- 

 vals of Shrove Tuesday, Good-Friday and Easter, may properly be treated 

 together, and as they ar based upon ideas which ar in great part the com- 

 mon heritage of Cliristian Europe, they vary but little in the diflferent 

 countries. The first festival of this season is Shrove Tuesday, or as it is 

 calld in the eastern and northern districts, Seraf ' Tuesday. This feast, 

 like the others pertaining to Lent, is movable, but generally occurs toward 

 the close of February, thus corresponding with the old pagan feasts of 

 Bacchus and Pan — the Bacchanalia and Lupercalia — of which Shrove 

 Tuesday is probably the modern descendant. From its Gaelic name, 

 Inid (Inij), Smiddy argues that it may correspond in Ireland with the an- 

 cient festival of Beinid, the Minerva of the pagan Irish.* The Roman 

 feast of Minerva took place about the middle of March, and was celebrated 

 by public amusements, and was also a favorit time for getting married. 

 This statement stil holds good throughout all Catholic countries, where 

 marriages ar prohibited by the Church during the succeeding six weeks of 

 Lent. On this subject the same author says : "It is also remarkable that 

 in the Irish-speaking districts more marriages take place at this season 

 than at any other period of the year. The feasts and the marriages are at 

 present ascribed to the near approach of the season of Lent ; but perhaps, 

 like the other popular festivities of the year, they had their origin in some- 

 thing more remote, though now forgotten." f Back of all mythology the 

 custom probably has its explanation in the fact, as stated by the poet, that 



" In the spring the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." 



It is popularly expected that all the marriageable young folks shal hav 

 been mated before Lent, and on this, the last day of grace, the j'oung men 

 in Cork, Waterford and other towns of the south, wer formerly accus- 

 tomd to go through the streets in bands, carrying ropes, with which they 

 caught any unlucky girl who had "mist her chance," and pulld her a 

 few rods along the road, after which she was releast. This was calld tak- 

 ing her to Skellig to get married, the allusion being to the Skellig rocks 

 on the coast of Kerry, formerly a noted place of pilgrimage, toward the 

 end of the Lenten season, for young women who desired good husbands. 

 This " taking to Skellig" has supplanted an older and rougher pastime, 



* Smiddy, Druids, 112, 

 t Idem, 112-3. 



