Going on ‘the dreoilín’ on Achill Island
The Wren boys tradition has been part of St Stephen's Day in Ireland for generations. These wren boys were pictured in Patrick Street, Cork, on St Stephen's Day in 1974.
It is a very macabre tradition.
St Stephen’s Day sees the tradition of ‘the wren’ continue in many parts of Ireland and the truth is many of the kids participating in it might be too young to have the full details laid out to them.
Our family did it this year in Dooega on Achill Island and we didn’t quite expose our children (ages eight, six and three) to the full extent of the ritual.
The wren is synonymous with wisdom and cunning.
It’s known as ‘the king of the birds’ which originates from the fable that when all birds gathered to decide who would be so crowned, the decision was made to award the title to whoever could fly furthest.
As soon as the birds took off, the wren concealed itself in the feathers of the eagle, knowing full well the eagle could fly the furthest. Then when the eagle decided to descend, long after every other bird had run out of puff, the wren left its comfortable hiding place and took flight just as the eagle landed, therefore claiming the crown. Cute enough.
It reminds me of the story of Clare hurler Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin during a particularly intense training session under Ger Loughnane.
Loughnane had the players running up and down an unforgiving hill near Shannon. O’Loughlin spotted some overgrowth halfway up – furze perhaps – and hid there, catching his breath before emerging after everyone had passed on the way down and sprinting past tired teammates, roaring at them to hurry up.
Maybe they should have changed his nickname from ‘sparrow’ to ‘wren’.
The Irish for wren is ‘dreoilín’, which means a trickster, and in Irish lore and legend, the wren has been blamed for all manner of evil deeds.
While in other European countries, the bird is associated with good fortune, in Ireland the opposite is the case.
As Aashima Rana from DCU, writing on RTÉ.ie, observed, St Stephen himself is purported to have fallen victim to the wren’s sneakiness. Known as the first Christian martyr, the legend has it that when Stephen was hiding from his attackers, it was the wren who attracted them to his hiding place by flapping its wings. As a result, the bird is associated with bad fortune and betrayal on our island.
Another fable goes back to Cromwellian times in the 17th century, and when Irish troops were about to attack Cromwell’s forces, wrens sat on the drums of soldiers and started to make noise, which alerted the invaders and halted the ambush.
And so a macabre tradition began that exists to this day of ‘the wren’ or, as it is called here in Dooega, ‘the dreoilín’.
Groups of children would dress up as ‘wren boys’ or ‘straw boys’ and find a wren, trap and kill it. It used only be boys who participated. I met one woman the same age as me in Dooega who never did ‘the dreoilín’ as a youngster but her brother did.
The deceased wren is then placed on a holly bush and the ‘wren boys’ march around to look for a ‘penny to bury the wran’ (spelled that way to rhyme with ‘pan’). They are collecting for its funeral!
The ‘wren boys’, legend has it, were founded to end the bad fortune associated with the bird. At the end of their St Stephen’s Day march, they bury the bird with a penny, believing this will end the bad luck.
Groups who are unable to hunt a real wren are considered to be unlucky, which is the category we fall into I am relieved to say. Perhaps that explains why our kids were sick between Christmas and New Year’s!
It was great to see ‘the wren’ revived in Castlebar over the Christmas and brought memories back of my own teenage years when we did ‘the wren’ in Breaffy.
Myself and some of my cousins went from house to house with a donkey and cart and gathered copious amounts of sweets and chocolates plus some coins for good measure (with an artificial bird I might add).
We then ventured into Castlebar and the heaving pubs on St Stephen’s Day. We got altogether fewer sweets and chocolates but much more money from the flaithiúlach patrons enjoying one of the most popular days of the year for the pub.
But the tradition had died out around Castlebar and in most places, and so its revival this Christmas was a wonderful sight.
I’m lucky to live somewhere in Achill where the tradition has remained very active. Indeed, so alive is the original tradition in people’s memories, that some we visited were disappointed the birds we had on our dreoilín box were fake.
Myth, legend and superstition play a huge part in Irish culture. The more we talk about, remember and keep alive our culture, the richer our descendants will be for it.
For our three, right now it is a bit of fun and it is a great chance to visit and chat with neighbours and those home to Achill for the Christmas. It is our fourth year doing it and there is a sense of sadness every year when you call to homes where there is an empty seat from the previous dreoilín.
The generosity of people was wonderful and they love to see the kids coming, reciting the dreoilín verse, singing a song or our eldest, Frankie, playing a tune on the tin whistle.
Unlike back in the day in Breaffy when all the money went into our back pockets – and not long after into Kevin Curry’s shop – we collect for local causes, this year’s being towards the cost of the local crib erected in Dooega for the first time at Christmas just gone. Don’t worry, the kids do well too, getting generous amounts of sweets and chocolates.
And no little wrens were harmed along the way.
