Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
I was up in Cookstown in Co. Tyrone today and got talking to two women, called Marie Quinn and Dymphna Ferran about what they remembered from their youth from the month of May. These are brilliant accounts and Marie remembers how her late uncle would place the May flowers on the doorsteps and on the houses with the animals in the shape of a cross on May Eve. She then recalls how lit a bonfire that evening and took a cinder from the fire and threw it into the nearest field to protect the crops and keep away evil.
Dymphna has a similar story regarding the May flowers and recalls how they would leave them on the doorstep and her father would open the door and welcome the flowers into the house on May Eve. These were then used to decorate their May Altar. Dymphna is a natural storyteller and a poet and she ends the clip in gorgeous reflective manner.
These are great stories and great to have voices from this part of Ireland recorded.
Text: Michael Fortune
I was up in Cookstown in Co. Tyrone today and got talking to two women, called Marie Quinn and Dymphna Ferran about what they remembered from their youth from the month of May. These are brilliant accounts and Marie remembers how her late uncle would place the May flowers on the doorsteps and on the houses with the animals in the shape of a cross on May Eve. She then recalls how lit a bonfire that evening and took a cinder from the fire and threw it into the nearest field to protect the crops and keep away evil.
Dymphna has a similar story regarding the May flowers and recalls how they would leave them on the doorstep and her father would open the door and welcome the flowers into the house on May Eve. These were then used to decorate their May Altar. Dymphna is a natural storyteller and a poet and she ends the clip in gorgeous reflective manner.
These are great stories and great to have voices from this part of Ireland recorded.
Text: Michael Fortune
