{"id":426400,"date":"2026-05-01T05:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426400\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T05:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:30:08","slug":"superstition-symbolism-and-the-first-long-weekend-of-summer-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426400\/","title":{"rendered":"Superstition, symbolism and the first long weekend of summer \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 May Day or L\u00e1 Bealtaine has been significant in Ireland since pagan times. In some countries it\u2019s called Labour Day to campaign for fair pay and to advocate for workers\u2019 rights. In 1994 then minister for enterprise Ruair\u00ed Quinn introduced a new public holiday on the first Monday in May, giving the workers of Ireland their first long weekend of the summer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">May Day is important in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/catholic-church\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/catholic-church\/\">Catholic Church<\/a>, primarily because it marks the start of Marian month, a special month-long dedication to Mary, mother of God. Parishes often start the month with the May crowning, adorning a statue of Mary with a wreath of flowers to honour her as Queen of May. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In Irish mythology, it was essential to avoid bad luck on May Day lest it linger all summer. Many old superstitions, \u201cpiseoga\u00ed\u201d in Irish, have survived and are connected to fairies and the female spirit, the Banshee. Some piseogs are so deeply ingrained that we follow them unwittingly. One of the best-known piseogs is contained in the magpie rhyme \u2013 one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, 10 for a bird you must not miss, 11 for health, 12 for wealth, 13 beware it\u2019s the devil himself. So, on May Day, wave away any lone magpie to stave off bad luck. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">BILLY RYLE,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Tralee,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Co Kerry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 May Day or L\u00e1 Bealtaine has been significant in Ireland since pagan times. In some countries&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12780,61,60,7727,43],"class_list":["post-426400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-catholic-church","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kerry","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}