Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/308

 2qS Fo/k/oj'c and History in Ireland.

put it — of a man having been killed in the chancel of St. Patrick's during a fight between the followers of Ormonde and Kildare. But the custom cannot have been of long continuance, for one can hardly picture a Protestant Lord Mayor submitting to it.

Hardiman mentions a Claddagh custom at Midsummer : " The Nativity of St. John the Baptist," he says, " they celebrate by a very peculiar kind of pageantry. On the evening of that day the young and old assemble at the head of that village ; and their Mayor, whose orders are decisive, adjusts the rank, order, and precedent of this curious procession. They then set out, headed by a band of music, and march with loud and continued Huzzas and acclamations of joy, accompanied by crowds of people, through the principal streets and suburbs of the Town : the young men all uniformly arrayed in short white jackets, with silken sashes, their hats ornamented with flowers, and upwards of sixty or seventy of the number bearing long poles and standards with suitable devices, which are in general emblematic of their profession. To heighten the merriment of this festive scene, two of the stoutest dis- guised in masks, and entirely covered with parti-coloured rags, as ' merrymen ' with many antic tricks and gambols, make way for the remainder. In the course of their progress, they stop with loud cheering and salutations opposite the houses of the principal inhabitants, from whom they generally receive money on the occasion. Having at length regained their village, they assembled in groups, dancing round, and sometimes leaping and running through their bonefires, never forgetting to bring home part of the fire, which they consider sacred ; and thus the night ends as the day began, in one continued scene of mirth and rejoicing."

A curious feature in Irish urban history is the connection of the mayors with bulls and bull-baiting. The last public act of the Mayor of Carrickfergus was to go to Church in