Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/302

 2Q2 Folklore and History in Irelmid.

chosen five days after the Feast of St. Peter. The Admiralty of the harbour was granted to the Sovereign with the same extent of power as the Mayor of Bristol had."

The ceremonies consequent on the possession of Ad- miralty rights by Mayors of seaport towns are by no means the least interesting of Irish municipal customs. These, mediaeval observances that have lingered on to our day, have a dramatic touch about them certain to appeal to the Irish temperament. What is more characteristically Irish even is the uncertainty of record regarding such mere details as dates ! To a certain extent the day must depend upon the tide, the lowest tides obviously being a desideratum.

The charter granted to Cork city by Edward IV. gives the franchises of the city seawards as including all strands " in and to which the sea ebbs and flows, in length and breadth within the aforesaid two points, called Rewrawne and Renowdran." " We have," says Gibson, " neither of these ' aforesaid two points ' marked on any ancient or modern map of Cork . . . but conclude it is between these two points outside the harbour's mouth where the Mayor of Cork throws the Dart." He quotes a local paper, unnamed and undated, which describes how, " having reached the necessary point at the Harbour's mouth, the Mayor put on his robes, and the Collar of SS, took the arrow, which was about a yard and a half in length with a heavy iron barbed head, and proceeding to the bow of the vessel, accompanied by the entire of the party (sic), threw it into the water amid a loud cheer."

Cf. similar customs at Sandwich in connection with Canute's grant in 1031. Also at Fordwich, and the fief held by Yorkshire constable by shooting an arrow annually into the sea.

Very similar was the Limerick custom. Lenihan quotes from White's MSS. " The Order of Franchises of Limerick "; " On Thursday, the loth of September, the Mayor, Sheriffs, and rest of the Corporation, in the King's yachts, went