Product Information
Title: The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the beginning of Harvest
Author: Máire MacNeill
ISBN: 9780906426104
Publisher: Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 2008
Other Information: 707 Pages, Hardcover
Garland Sunday and Domhnach Chrom Dubh are two of the many names of a festival celebrated by Irish country people at the end of July or the beginning of August. It marked the end of summer and the beginning of harvest season, and on that day the first meal of the year’s new food crop was eaten. The chief custom was the resorting by the rural communities to certain heights or water-sides to spend the day in festivity, sports, and bilberry-picking. The custom existed also in the Isle of Man, Wales and in the north of England. Formerly it must have been general in all Celtic lands for there is no doubt that it is a survival of Lughnasa (Lugnasad), the Celtic festival held on the first of August. In the description of the celebration much emerges of the old life of the countryside, and so the study is, in part, a contribution to social history. Moreover, as the people preserved legends of the origin of the festival and of the assembly sites, it has been possible to show a correspondence with ancient mythology, as expressed in Irish Literature and in the cult-figures of Roman Gaul. The dominant myth of the festival is brought to light.
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