Work for remembering the dead
October 2026
'[B]elief in witchcraft, ghosts, divination, prophecies, and astrology, along with the regular intervention in earthly affairs by spiritual essences such as God and the Devil, Angels and Demons, formed a core part of both Catholic and Protestant popular religion in Ireland.' - Andrew Sneddon, 'Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland'
October runs toward Hallowe'en at its end, and this work...
A chair pulled up to the fire
7th October 2026
'Hallowe'en was preeminently a commemoration of the dead, a time when ghosts and fairies were unusually active, the whole of the world of the supernatural astir and the dead returned to their earthly homes.' - E. Estyn Evans, 'Irish Folk Ways'
This particular folklorist puts Hallowe'en along side the return of the livestock from their summer grazing, when the herders came home ...
A Spell for Sharing
26th September 2026
"every family... at least of the ordinary sort of people, kill a sheep, and bestow the greatest part of it upon relieving the poor." - Geoffrey Keating's History of Ireland, summarised in the Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society
The twenty ninth of September falls three days after this one lands, and the harvest is in by then in most places that do that sort of thin...