Remembering the dead and other old Mayo customs

by Auld Stock

WITH the passage of time many old customs have passed into oblivion.

Years ago, when a member of a family passed away, the relatives of the deceased had a diamond-shaped piece of cloth sewn into the sleeve of their overcoat.

The piece of cloth was left in place for a year from the date of the death of the deceased person.

It was also the custom in those days to salute priests each time you met them in public.

This custom has long since fallen by the wayside. In fact most priests were embarrassed by the practice.

A familiar sight in the 1950s and 1960s was the kissing of the bishop’s ring by the captains of football and hurling teams before the start of All-Ireland finals.

Older women always took a lighted sod of turf from bonfires and placed it on the hearth in the kitchen of the house. The sod was said to ward off evil spirits.

In former times, outside large national schools in this country, there was a small sign with the image of a torch.

It appears the word educate comes from the Latin language, meaning to brighten up the mind.

I have a faint collection of such a sign hanging from a pole opposite the Monastery, Chapel Street, Castlebar.

The sign didn’t help me one bit for the few years I attended school. One of the happiest days of my life was when I bid a final farewell to school.

It is difficult to appreciate the huge number of changes which have taken place in Ireland over the past 60 years, some good, some bad.

As far as I am concerned, despite all the violence, the world is now a better place than it was when I was a gasur.

One fault I have with modern life is that people don’t talk to each other as much as they did in the past. Talk is said to be cheap but it is an essential lifeline between us humans.

There is something nice about people bidding the time of day to each other.

‘How are things, ould stock?’ has a nice ring about it.

It surely can brighten the darkest day.