Thurles Information

Memories of Thurles Maytime – Short story by Tom Ryan.

I have always thought of the month of May as one of the most colourful and romantic months of the year, ever since I saw those beautiful mayflowers in the old movie, ”Maytime”, starring the delightful duo, Nelson Eddy, and Jeannette McDonald.

Even at Scoil Ailbhe Primary School in Thurles, in the ‘Fifties’, we eagerly awaited the merry month of May as the Brothers would have us helping to dress up the May Altar at the end of the corridor. A task which took us out of the classroom and away from ink wells and nib pens and blotting paper and of course, the dreaded cane or leather.
We had to fetch in flowers and blue and white crepe paper and candles for the imposing statue in blue and white stationed at the end of the corridor along which we would march to sing lovely hymns in tribute to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I can still hear the young voices singing “I’ll sing a Hymn to Mary, The Mother of My God”, and of course, the lovely Ave Maria or O’ Mother! I could weep for mirth, Joy fills my heart so fast; My soul today is heaven on earth, O could the transport last! “

As a child in the Presentation Convent Halfpenny or Penny Classes (latter the equivalent of our modern Junior Infants and Senior Infants), we would parade down a glass covered corridor to the gaily decorated and painted May Pole around which we danced and played to our hearts’ content.
At home we would gather some rags, which we’d place on a May bush and off we’d go, door to door, crying “Penny On The May Bush”, and we’d hope to make a few bob for the price of the cinema or the train journey to see Tipperary playing of a Sunday, in Croke Park, Limerick Gaelic Grounds or down by the lovely Lee in Cork.
Years later, my wife and I used to love Gay Byrne playing the beautiful, ”Bring Flowers of the Rarest”, recorded by Rev. Canon Sydney Mac Ewan, “Oh, Mary We crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May”.

Somehow it was never quite ‘May Day’ without our hearing that lovely hymn.

Those of us boys who wore Our Lady’s Blue cravats, with our Boy Scouts Uniform, used to march around St. Patrick’s College, Thurles, in the May Procession, singing hymns and acting as a Guard of Honour, for the huge statue of Our Lady being carried around the once seminary grounds, on the banks of the River Suir, east of Thurles town.
Of course May was a time of pishogues and superstitions also. An old railwayman friend of mine, once recalled for me an amazing bush in the area at Our Lady’s Well, Thurles, near to Thurles golf course. My friend recalled that “You had the mix of the Christian and Pagan traditions in Lady’s Well”.

He stated “There was a Mass tree in Lady’s Well. It had been there since Penal times and there was a large wooden cross on it. In Penal times Mass was celebrated there. There was also a bush over the nearby well which was very colourful. You would see thousands of little bits of rags on the bush, standing four or five feet high over the well. The rags had been left there in May by hundreds of people who hoped for a cure for some ailment, either of mind or body.
There was a pishogue that if you left a bit of a garment that you wore close to your skin on the bush; you would be cured. The bits of garments were mainly made of red flannel which was then very popular with the women and young children. It was believed that according as the rags were worn away by the weather, so also in direct proportion was your misfortune cured or fully eliminated.

It was a pagan custom from the days of the Druids and like so many other pagan customs, it
became a Christian one. My friend recalled Thurles people putting the rags on that bush at Our Lady’s Well, up to the time Thurles Town Council put a pumping station there, many years ago.