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.
