County Wexford has always been a stronghold of the May Bush tradition in Ireland, and over the past two decades folklorist Michael Fortune has kept the tradition alive in his native county. Michael introduces the festivities below.
On the first of May summer officially begins in Ireland and in centuries-old fashion, it's also the time that many people in Wexford will gather their painted eggshells, ribbons and bunches of flowers and decorate their May Bush. The May Bush tradition is not just practiced in Wexford. It is found in other counties in Leinster, East Munster, East Connacht and Ulster. Wexford, however, is regarded as one of the strongholds of the tradition, particularly in recent decades.
The May Bush in Wexford is a piece of a whitethorn (known locally as a 'sceach') or a furze/gorse bush which is erected on May Eve or May Day and decorated with painted eggshells, ribbons and seasonal flowers. In other parts of the country they use rowan and even chestnut. Traditionally, May Bushes were erected in a prominent place outside in a bid to keep the ‘pisheogs’ away (i.e. the fairies) and like so many of our customs the May Bush was centred on the protection of the growing crops and the milk yield. Eggshells were kept from Easter Sunday, mostly by girls, and then painted and hung on these bushes. As children, my late mother used balloons which were bright for a moment, but they didn't last long!
Another contemporary take on the eggs these days is the use of plastic Kinder egg shells and leftover foil from Easter eggs. These can be spotted on May Bushes around the county. These days people leave their May Bushes up for the month, while in the past it was left to wither of its own accord. The key thing was to get it up on May Eve/Day, as this was the turning point in the year when ‘the fairies’ were out. The May Bush was used to keep them and bad luck away from your home and farmyard and never brought inside.
(Pic: Michael Fortune)
Planting the tradition into the fabric of Wexford
The tradition around the May Bush went into a steep decline around the county in the 1960s/1970s. In 2017, with the help of my wife, Aileen Lambert, we started a ground-up festival called The Wexford May Bush Festival. Using social media, local papers, radio and word of mouth we have successfully re-established the tradition back into the fabric of Wexford. In recent years we distributed thousands of little whitethorns as part of The May Bush Planting Scheme which were planted in homes, schools, villages, crossroads and towns around the county. As a result, the tradition has grown and flourished and has helped thousands of people, young and old, to embrace the tradition once again.
May Day celebrations across Europe
Erecting a May Bush was part of a wider European May Day celebration marking the start of summer. You will find this tradition in different guises from Germany to Sweden and from England to Wales. Our nearby neighbours in England and Wales erected a tall Maypole on this date and elected a May Queen. This Maypole tradition was also found in Ireland in areas which had strong English influence. However the May Bush or May Tree tradition is not just found in Ireland and Galicia in the northwest of Spain they mark their May Day in the exact same with bushes and trees decorated with May flowers and eggshells while the same tradition exists in parts of Poland as part of their Winter to Spring celebrations and rituals in late March.
Hares stealing milk
As stated, many people put up the May Bush to keep the fairies from stealing their milk profit and yield. There is an abundance of stories of shape-shifting hares seen on a May morning, sucking the milk from the cows in our folklore. The classic story goes that the owner of the cow would go out into the field and find the hare at work. He would shoot at it, but only wounding it, it would then run bleeding into a nearby house. The farmer would call to the door of the house and an old woman would appear, bleeding from the hip.
The May Bush - across the Atlantic in Newfoundland
The May Bush tradition also travelled across the Atlantic and still survives in pockets of rural Newfoundland, whose forebearers from the south-east of Ireland settled there in the late 1700s. Over the years I have visited these communities and found the May Tree tradition was still undertaken by a handful of older people, including Catherine Conway from Point Lance in St. Mary’s Bay. As they didn’t have the whitethorn or gorse, they use a pine tree and decorate it with ribbons, and instead of candles Catherine puts Christmas fairy lights on them. Interestingly, the ribbons on the May Tree are always blue as the month of May is associated with the Virgin Mary. Come the month of June, The May Tree is left up but the ribbons replaced with red ones, as June is associated with the Sacred Heart. As in Wexford, you will find statues of Our Lady left at the foot of the May Bush or tied up on top.
crowning a May Queen and May King
May Queens and May Kings
Around Wexford you will also have the tradition of electing a May Queen and this was another direct import from our neighbours in Wales and England. This was popular in the town of Bunclody and also found in Gorey and Coolgreany. Above is a photo of Máire Comerford in Gorey which was taken in the early 1990s of her and her friends at Sean Lios in Gorey, crowning a May Queen and May King and also putting flowers on the little tree behind them. The writing on the crown says 1990 but it could have been reused for other years. Photos like these are precious and as rare as hen's teeth, as they visualise the tradition in the region and place it in a wider timeline. Like many of us who grew up with these traditions, we never thought about documenting them as they were just things we did.
May event in Coolgreany in the 1950s.
Putting up a May Bush
If you are new to the tradition all you need to do is cut down a small bough of a whitethorn or furze, stake it up in a prominent place and decorate it with ribbons, egg shells and flowers on May Eve or May Day. In time you can also plant a little whitethorn slip and watch it grow in your home, village or community. So with that in mind, it's time to get decorating,as the 1st of May is just around the corner. So join us and put up your May Bush and drive dull care away.
Find our more about the folklore collection of Michael Fortune here.
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