Easter holds key that opens the door to Summer season

Country Living with Francis Farragher

As Christian festivals go, I’ve always been a man for Easter. It’s probably more weather and light related than religious, but regardless of its irregular arrival every year, Easter always seems to herald ‘the turn’ in the year when there’s a real stretch in the days and if we’re lucky (as we are this year) a really green and lush look to the countryside.

That latter part of the equation doesn’t always work out and farmers especially will need no reminding of the hungry Spring we had in 2013, when there was hardly a blade of grass to be seen as the early days of Summer loomed.

Fixing the Easter date is a strange enough business – the festival Sunday can fall as early as early as March 22 and as late as April 25, based primarily on the lunar calendar. The simple rule-of-thumb for Easter Sunday is that it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox of March 21.

This year, it was actually quite a close call in terms of having a very early Easter or a very late one. We had a full moon on March 21, and if its arrival had been just one day later, then we’d have Easter Sunday on March 24.

As it transpires this year, the first full moon after the equinox is on Friday, April 19 (Good Friday), which gives us a later and brighter Easter in 2019. While Easter for us Christians is inextricable linked with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, even in pagan times, there always seems to haven been a mid-Spring festival around this time.

The word Easter seems to have evolved from a German Goddess of fertility called Eostre but the early Christian missionaries were clever enough operators and rather than try and get rid of the pagan festivals, they essentially took them over and ‘Christianised’ them.

The moon though never seems to be far away from either Christian or pagan celebrations of festivals. The date of death of Jesus on the cross has been referenced as occurring on the day after the night of the full moon that followed on from the Spring Equinox which would have been Friday, April 3, 33AD.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.