John Arnold: I poured holy water on calves to mark the merry month of May

Last Thursday morning, I was up early. It was the first day of the month of May - May Day, a very special day and date in Ireland, especially in ancient times.

What is ancient? What is modern? Often, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

So, on May morning I was up and out in the haggard in stocking-less feet at half past five; Yes, it was chilly, but what about it?

I knelt on the grass in the middle of the yard and, with cupped hands, I washed my face ‘in the May morning dew’ as generations have done before me.

On the Wednesday evening, I’d been fencing until near dark. I came back to the farmyard then and took a bottle of holy water and set off around the fields. The holy water came from Lourdes - it was ‘left over’ in Cork Airport about five years ago when we returned from pilgrimage in June and I brought it home.

I had left calves out for the first time that day in the Orchard Field so I sprinkled them all.

The tradition of blessing the gaps and gates on a farm with holy water is to try and ensure good luck for all humans and animals that pass through during the coming year.

Similarly, the tradition of the face-washing in the May morning dew is said to ward off evil and keep the ‘good spirits’ onside.

The cold dew is also said to be beneficial for one’s facial complexion – though I met a man later in a shop and he said he didn’t see any great improvement in my visage!

By coincidence, just last week I got a present of Jo Kerrigan and Richard Mills’ new book Irish Fairy Forts -Portals To The Past. It’s a wonderful and magical publication. I dipped into its 250 pages -just flicking through; as a special treat for myself I’ve put it a way for the moment. When I get enough time to read it in one ‘sitting’, I’ll be ‘ar mhuinn na muice’ - on the pig’s back entirely.

Reading a book like this is akin to a mini-break from the hum-drum of everyday life, like enjoying a beautiful meal or listening to music I love.

The ‘experts’ and climatologists tend to define summer as June, July and August, whereas I liken May to the start of summer. ‘La Bealtaine’, May 1, was regarded in olden days, back to the Pagan era, as the beginning of summer.

From now on, the land will be in full swing, yielding bountiful crops, fattening cattle and giving grass, hay and silage to fill the ‘hungry gaps’ next winter.

We’re having a virtual heatwave yet the older generations swore that ‘a wet and windy May fills the barns with corn and hay’.

I love this month for many reasons. I think its lengthening evenings are the start of the real hurling season – though with this blasted split season the season could well be over for some county teams next weekend!

We got married in May so memories come flying back down all the years.

Going on honeymoon to Fuengirola in Spain back in May, 1981, was truly unforgettable. We were originally planning to go to Dubrovnik in Yugoslavia but events overtook and changed all that. President Tito died in 1980 and by the following spring the country was in turmoil, so we headed for southern Spain instead.

Some day soon, in May, we’ll hopefully get to Dubrovnik!

Just as March and September was ‘set in stone’ for the club and inter- county All Ireland finals (alas no more!), in days of yore May was synonymous with Bartlemy Races.

Point to Point race meetings over open country and ‘banks’ in the Cork area were often organised by the officers and men of the British Army stationed in Ireland - at the time we were still under foreign occupation.

I have in my possession a silver cup for the Bartlemy Open Farmers Race in 1908. It was presented by the Officers of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers - then stationed, I think, in Ballincollig.

Back then, certain races were for the gentry, the red-coated so-called ‘gentlemen’, whilst the local farmers had their own race. In 1912, at the Bartlemy races held at Rathaneague, famed Dungourney and Cork hurler - and expert horsemen - Jamesy Kelleher had the temerity to take on all comers in the Open Race.

Riding his own Ocean Breeze, Kelleher won - it was seen as a sign of audacity and self-belief amongst the ‘ordinary’ country folk of East Cork.

Kelleher was greeted and feted in a manner we now tend to associate with Punchestown, Ascot, Aintree or The Curragh!

The races are on here next Sunday again - continuing a tradition going back into the mists of time.

In years gone by - right back to the 1860s - a horse race was always held on September 19 at the second of the great Bartlemy Horse Fairs. Soon now, a new housing development will begin in the Old Fair Field which looked down on the Galloping Field where the race began.

For me, May is also the month of another All Ireland final- the Amateur Drama Finals in Athlone.

Utopia for me would be to go to the Westmeath town for the full ten days of the finals in the Dean Crowe Theatre and see all the plays as well as a myriad of ‘fringe’ events!

I’ve been to a few plays there in the last decade but won’t make it this year. A pity, as two ‘local’ groups are amongst those vying for the national title this year.

The festival opens tonight and goes on until May 16. Tomorrow, Friday night sees Brideview Players from Tallow stage The Weir, by Conor McPherson. Jack Ahern is their producer - he won East Cork Hurling League medals with us in Bride Rovers in 1981 and ’82.

Sean Ahern is one of the leading actors in The Weir - we shared a stage together back in 2006 when Sean and myself had parts in a Fr Prout pageant in Watergrasshill.

Another interesting link - Conor McPherson, in that year of 2006, staged another of his plays, The Seafarer, for the first time. One of the play’s characters, the mysterious Mr Lockhart, arrives on a Christmas Eve to ‘collect a debt’ - in fact, he’s coming to take Sharky away - at least his soul - keeping a bargain they had made years before.

The first time I saw the play, I thought of the Fear Dubh (Black Man) in the book Seadna, written by An t-Athair Peadar O Laoghaire, published in 1904. Curate here in this parish from 1872 until 1878, Fr Peter O’Leary was a frequent visitor to Bartlemy Fair.

In Seadna, he recounts the story of how Seadna sold his soul to the devil, the Fear Dubh, who eventually ‘calls in his debt’. In the book, An t-Tathair Peadar gives a vivid description of the horse race he saw at Bartlemy Fair one year.

On Monday next, Ballyduff will tread the boards in Athlone with a stage adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s book Blackwater Lightship, produced by Geraldine Canning. The ‘granny’ in this play is Mary Colbert who happens to be married to a cousin of mine!

I started washing my face in the May morning dew, went on honeymoon, then to Bartlemy Races, Tallow, Ballyduff and Athlone - that’s enough rambles for one day at least!