Labour Day
May Day
“The summer is bursting upon us. Even the rooks, that balance on the tops of the still grey and unleaved ash, have assumed a softened, cawing note, and the sharp call of the chaffinch assumes a melody in our ears, because we hail it as the season's chime”.
Thus the 19th-century collection called Ireland: Her Wit, Peculiarities and Popular Superstitions summarizes the folkloristic meaning of Irish May Day. Falling on the first Monday of the month, this holiday marks the beginning of the warm season. Its Irish name is Lá Bealtaine, deriving from the Old Irish words “Bel taine” (“bright fire”), and the Celtic pastoral God Belenos. May Day is also internationally recognized as Labour Day, though in many countries it occurs on May 1. This date commemorates the devotion of first labor unions and celebrates the work of all nation’s employers. This meaning of the holiday originated on the American continent, and some sources emphasize that it was the Irish immigrants that incited worker strikes there.
In her article for the Irish Central, Patricia McCarthy enumerates the true heroes of the Labor Movement in the United States (all being of Irish descent): Mary Jones, who in the 19th century opposed child labor in Pennsylvania; Peter McGuire, who was the co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (1886); Matthew Maguire, who was “a secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York, which organized the first-ever Labor Day parade in 1882”; and Mike Quill, who established the Transit Workers Union in 1934. This is why many Irish citizens have assumed May Day to be an important occasion to celebrate their national heritage.
Apart from this meaning of the holiday, Ireland, similarly to Great Britain, has drawn its traditions from the ancient Roman festival of Floralia, which had been a great celebration of spring and its goddess, Flora. More importantly, however, the Irish folklore is based on the Celtic tradition of Beltaine, a festivity of fire and renewal, which used to also occur in May. This is what inspired the Irish to light giant bonfires on the evening before May Day and to celebrate the holiday with an abundance of flowers. Labour Day/Beltaine/May Day was introduced into the Irish national calendar in 1993.
The Irish celebration of Lá Bealtaine is mainly focused on collecting flowers and other plants in order to create decorations that scare mythical bad spirits and fairies away. The famous rhyme “Here we go gathering nuts in May” actually refers to “knots” of flowers. The most popular decoration is the May bush, which is made out of hawthorn and blackthorn branches adorned with colorful ribbons and flowers. The aim of displaying the bush in front of the house has changed throughout the years; the tradition used to be semi-pagan, because the villagers wished to resist evil spirits and bring themselves luck in the autumn harvest. When Catholicism asserted its position in Ireland, the custom changed its purpose into Virgin Mary worship. Of course, there are also practiced traditions common with the UK, such as dancing around the high maypole, entangling it with colorful strips of material. Some Irish schools gather assemblies, where children sing May Day hymns. Fresh spring flowers surround everything, even the more official occasions, such as the celebration of Labour Day in Dublin; that is how the pastoral tradition merges with social and political events, where prominent figures, such as the president of the Dublin Trades Council, speak about the importance of the Labor Movement nowadays.
Ireland celebrates May Day as a public holiday, which means that public and private institutions and businesses are closed. The long weekend is a good opportunity to attend events that open the summer season, for example barbecues or open air festivals. The best festivity in this period, however, is the May Day national celebration, which is almost as quintessential for the Irish culture as St. Patrick’s Day.