{"id":641101,"date":"2026-10-01T00:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T00:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641101\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T00:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T00:50:13","slug":"with-blazing-sods-of-turf-in-their-hands-the-wren-boys-marched-through-listowel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641101\/","title":{"rendered":"With blazing sods of turf in their hands, the Wren Boys marched through Listowel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Cormac Fitzgerald<\/p>\n

Rockin’ the Suburbs<\/p>\n

In this series, journalist and spoken word artist Cormac Fitzgerald travels to a different town or suburb each week to write about the gigs and cultural experiences you rarely see covered by Irish media outlets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s subject: Watching the Wren Boys at the Harvest Festival in Listowel, County Kerry.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

DECKED OUT IN colourful jackets, vests, hats and other regalia, and lit by blazing sods of turf stuck to the end of pikes, the Brosna Wren Boys made their way down Church Street in Listowel last Friday night.<\/p>\n

Led by the local storyteller and entertainer Frances Kennedy, about 50 people in total strode towards the stage set up on the crowded town square, belting out a traditional march on accordions, flutes, banjos, fiddles and bodhr\u00e1ns.<\/p>\n

First, the Bean and Fear an T\u00ed took to the stage, dressed in more drab greys and browns. These are the man and woman of the house, who the Wren Boys come to pay a visit on.<\/p>\n

Frances Kennedy came on next as the leader or \u201cKing\u201d (though she is a woman) of the Brosna group, who duly followed her and took up their seats and perches on the stage. Though called the \u201cWren Boys\u201d, there were men and women, boys and girls of every age among them.<\/p>\n

What followed over the next 40 minutes was a mixture of traditional music, dancing, singing and storytelling rooted in the traditions of the town of Brosna and the surrounding areas of the Sliabh Luachra region of north-east Kerry, about a 20-minute drive from Listowel.<\/p>\n

There were well-known north Kerry set dances like the Blackbird and the Patsy Haley, as well as some Kerry polkas and some fast-paced reels thrown in. There was individual Irish dancing, singing and storytelling. And most of all, there was music.<\/p>\n

For the 67th year (with one or two missed along the way), the All-Ireland Wren Boys Championship was well underway.<\/p>\n

\"05069356-3a7d-420e-816d-fbefa9d1ec5f\"
\n Ballydonoghue Wren Boys onstage in Listowel.\n<\/p>\n

Hunting for the wren<\/p>\n

The tradition of the wren stretches back many centuries in Irish history, with its exact origins lost in the mists of time. It centres around\u00a0L\u00e1 an Dreoil\u00edn\/Wren\u2019s Day, which takes place on St Stephen\u2019s Day, the first day after Christmas.<\/p>\n

Traditionally on this day, the men of the locality would go out and attempt to capture a wren.<\/p>\n

In later years, this morphed into a day of music and dancing, as wren boys would dress in masks and colourful costumes, sometimes made from straw, and go from house to house playing traditional music, dancing, drinking and collecting money<\/p>\n

The tradition still lives on in a number of areas, most notably Dingle in west Kerry, where 26 December is a busy day of music and festivities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"66feb36f-c5fa-4811-9ee9-8364484ac2e8\"
\n The Fear and Bean an T\u00ed with the Brosna Wren Boys walking to the stage in Listowel.\n<\/p>\n

The All-Ireland Wren Boys Championship was founded in Listowel in the 1950s by a group of locals, among them the writer and publican (and Listowel legend) John B Keane, in an effort to keep the tradition alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Large groups from towns and villages from across the country would descend on Listowel on the Friday night of the Listowel Harvest Festival.<\/p>\n

Closely linked with local Comhaltas groups \u2013 organisations dedicated to protecting and spreading Ireland\u2019s cultural traditions \u2013\u00a0they would bring their own music, dances and traditions to the stage in an attempt to woo the judges and become the All-Ireland Wren Boys Champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back to the sixties to win the Wren Boys All-Ireland was a major coveted title,\u201d Frances Kennedy told me.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d have groups coming from Armagh, from Leitrim, from Kilashandra in Cavan, and lots of other places.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a young fella they used to get groups from Cavan and Meath, Tipperary and Limerick, Clare and north Cork,\u201d said Christy Walsh, a local publican and organiser of the competition.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d all take part, and there\u2019d be a few different groups from Kerry.<\/p>\n

The Listowel Harvest Festival has taken place at the end of September every year stretching back to the middle of the 19th century. Today, the festival is mostly known for the high-profile horse-racing that takes place over the course of the week.<\/p>\n

\"5ec0b485-9e85-43a3-961c-4d05b3a5a644\"
\n The Brosna Wren Boys on stage.\n<\/p>\n

While the racing has always been at the centre of the festival, Walsh remembers a time when there were many more harvest-themed events.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was younger I remember you\u2019d have publicans and barman races\u2026 There were donkey derbies and pig racing, fancy dress parades and a rake of different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of these events have disappeared over the years, and the Wren Boys showcase has also struggled. Last year, it didn\u2019t take place for the first time (excluding during the Covid-19 pandemic) since the 1950s.<\/p>\n

This year, far from competitors coming from across the country, just two Kerry groups took part.<\/p>\n

Hunting for the title<\/p>\n

But what great groups those two were!<\/p>\n

As well as Brosna, the more local Ballydonoghue Wren Boys opened the night\u2019s performances to the delight and cheers from the crowd.<\/p>\n

As is the tradition, they too came with the blazing sods through the crowd and, it has to be said, more colourful and diverse costumes than their Brosna counterparts.<\/p>\n

The Ballydonoghue \u201cking\u201d was local man Paddy McElligott, decked out in a flowing red cape and looking like a friendly devil in a crown of horns.<\/p>\n

Again, the stage was packed with upwards of 50 people, from small children up to pensioners, and there was all sorts of music, dancing, storytelling and song.<\/p>\n

Ballydonoghue had that little bit extra on the night, including a pantomime horse, a rousing rendition of the Kerry classic An Poc ar Buile and, if that wasn\u2019t enough, their Fear an T\u00ed threw sweets into the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All in all, it was enough to give Ballydonoghue the edge, and they were crowned the All Ireland Wren Boys Champions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, all was not lost, with Frances Kennedy securing the coveted title of \u2018The King of the Wren Boys\u2019 for the fifth year in a row.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the first woman to win King of the Wren in the history of the competitions and to stay King of the Wren,\u201d Kennedy told me.<\/p>\n

And we will be back again next year again.<\/p>\n

Why does she think there are far fewer people taking part in the competition today than in years gone by?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes an awful lot to get a group together. It\u2019s a huge commitment and it\u2019s very hard to raise a group now,\u201d Kennedy tells me.<\/p>\n

\"569ce38b-4843-47ce-ad90-10757121344d\"
\n Frances Kennedy. The King \/ Queen of the Wren Boys.\n<\/p>\n

Friday, when the competition takes place, is also Ladies\u2019 Day at the races, the busiest day of the week when all the young people head out on the town.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the young boys and girls they get dressed up now and they go to the races on Ladies\u2019 Day and it can be hard to get them to take part,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Christy Walsh agrees, and said that organisers might try to move the competition to another day of the week in the future to give local groups the best chance of raising a team to take part.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have done the last few years is we\u2019ve upped the money on offer so that every group that takes part gets the same amount to go towards their local Comhaltas group,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFour groups would be brilliant to get and a 40-minute show from each group to make a proper competition out of it\u2026 but we\u2019d love to hold onto this tradition as long as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The groups might not have come from far and wide this year to take part in the competition, but standing in the packed square, watching people of all ages singing and dancing and having fun on the stage, it was clear that the tradition of the Wren Boys is still alive in this corner of Kerry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cormac Fitzgerald Rockin’ the Suburbs In this series, journalist and spoken word artist Cormac Fitzgerald travels to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,272174,51798,272175,61,60,27157,228613,272176],"class_list":["post-641101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-friday-in-the-kingdom","tag-harvest-festival","tag-hunting-for-the-wren","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-listowel","tag-rockin-the-suburbs","tag-wren-boys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641101","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=641101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}