A time to appreciate the jewel that is Midsummer

Country Living with Francis Farragher

THE other day as a few of us mused about how quickly Midsummer had come upon us, a colleague mentioned how wonderful it would be if this time of year could at least last for a couple of months, rather than slithering by so quickly.

That’s the problem with time: there’s just no holding it back and regardless of what material fortunes we might happen to stumble upon such as a lotto win, no money will buy back one second of time.

While our Irish weather, as always, might be a tad troublesome, there is, on a clear day and night of Midsummer, that wonderful phenomenon where it never gets fully dark. By the time the light of the late summer sun has retreated, the skies never really blacken and by 3am, the shafts of brightness begin to return.

Our Summer Solstice has occurred earlier this week, normally peaking between the 20th and 22nd days of June, but for of us of rural stock, the peak of the season of light was always on June 23 and June 24, the latter being the feast of St. John the Baptist.

The night of June 23 was always one marked by bonfires across the North Galway countryside with trips on donkey and cart made in the week preceding the ‘big evening’ to the local garage, where old tyres would be picked up for the big blaze.

Back then, recycling was a term used for going back to the shop if some vital provision like cigarettes for my mother were forgotten, and there was always a wow factor if an old lorry tyre could be located, sending flames and plumes of smoke to the heavens.

It was always a late night for young and old, but there was never to be any period of rest the morning after, St John’s Day, when the fair of Abbeyknockmoy drew a fair selection of stock and supposedly good buyers from ‘up the country’.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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