Irish
Customs & Superstitions
The
House. Rules & Pisheogs
Deserted
house
There
were lots of little 'rules' or pisheogs (sayings) related to the building
of a house. A new house to replace an old one should never be built
across the road from the old one. A room should never be built as
an extension to the "west" of a house. Is fear nios treise
na Dia a chuirfeadh faid siar as a theach (Only a man stronger than
God would extend his house to the west. Although in county Westmeath
it was said that it was unlucky to build on the north side of a house
and in county Tipperary it was the south side was the unlucky side.
Do
you realise that in learning about the customs and traditions and
implements of a county, you may find hints as to where your ancestors
came from? Different farming implements and other home made items
had different designs or were made slightly differently in some cases
from one county to another.
Now
a house was supposed to be lucky, that was important. The home is
where the heart is, the home is the heart of a family, the warmth
found in a home cannot be compared to anything else. There were many
customs associated with making the house or home a lucky place for
all involved. Some went into the building of the house and some others
were included after the house was built. There were two ways of bringing
this luck. By prayers or blessings of some sort or other the blessings
being 'good-luck charms' and some of these it is said, relate back
to the pagan times, back to the times before Christianity came to
Ireland, back to Celtic times.
Items
were buried in the foundations of the house, these were of two kinds,
religious or superstitious. The main place for burial was under the
foundation stone of a house. A new coin with the date of the year
in which the house was built was the most favoured. A coin was supposed
to bring prosperity, the owners of the hosue would never be without
money. Again, the old English florin was considered very lucky with
it's 'cross' on one side. People liked to have a silver coin, those
who were rich enough used a gold sovereign or a half sovereign.
As
with other things, we can see customary items being buried in specific
counties. In counties Offaly (King's), Westmeath and Monaghan the
people liked to place St. Benedict's medals in the four corners of
a house. A small piece of 'Gartan clay' -earth from St. Columcille's
sanctuary at Gartan was put into the foundations of many Donegal houses.
Donegal people also used clay from Tory Island, another sanctuary
of St. Columcille, the patron saint of Donegal. We are told that if
this clay was in the foundations, the house would not go on fire.
Small
containers of holy water have been recovered from foundations, written
prayers or holy pictures in containers. Small pieces of iron in houses
in Carncash, Co. Sligo; Emyvale, Co. Monaghan; Dualla, Co. Tipperary;
in Inistiogue in Co. Kilkenny a horseshoe has been found; a piece
of tobacco in Co. Monaghan and some whiskey in Kerrykeel, Co. Donegal.
Only the people who put in their good luck charms know why they included
what they did in their foundations, we can only guess.
The
custom of putting a charm or some sort into the foundations of a house
has been explained by some as a means of placating the spirit of the
site, or, in the case of human or animal sacrifices to provide a spirit
for the house. Then again, another explanation which rings true is
that some of these items were laid in order to improve the sound in
the building - to make sounds resonate better. This is quite acceptable
when we think in terms of dancing and threshing activities. It is
true that human skulls have been found at Ballinderry crannog and
tradition says that St. Columcille's brother Dobhran was buried alive
to placate the spirits before a church could be built at Iona. Henry
Morris records that when the Rev. Canon Meehan, P.P. of Keadue in
Co. Roscommon was a young man in Co. Westmeath, no house would be
built without some live animal being put under the foundation stone,
a chicken, a kitten or a rabbit being common.
Of
all the burying customs found about the country, that of burying horses
or cows skulls was the most common. In the townland of Muckanstown
on the Dublin-Meath border, horses skulls have been found under many
floors and in one case up to ten skulls were found under the floorboards
of one room alone. Many house in Ireland had a 'flagstone' in front
of the fire (the hearth) and it was under this that a skull or skulls
were most commonly buried. In some counties, (especially, Clare, Kerry,
Limerick (Mahoonaghbeg) and Tipperary) an iron pot was buried and
not a skull. A hole had been made in the clay and in it a small flat-bottomed
oven pot was hung from two thin iron rods, which had been laid crossways
over the hole. An irregularly shaped piece of iron plate had then
been laid over the hole and the flagstone put in place. This flagstone
measured about 8 feet by 4 feet, as was quite normal.
Whatever
the reason for burying skulls and pots, the theory that it was done
to help with resonation is most acceptable. The step dancers demonstrated
their skills on the flagstone or hearthstone of any house and for
this the sound of the steps was important.
