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extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.
COUNTY ANTRIMI take my fiddle down and my Mary smiling thereNo book about fairs would be complete without a mention of the best known fair of them all – the Lammas Fair at Ballycastle, immortalised in song by John Henry MacAuley of that town. The name comes from the Old English Hlaf Maesse (Loaf Mass) meaning the festival of first fruits. This fair dates back to the fourteenth century (or earlier). We know that Randal McDonnell received a charter from James I in 1606 for holding fairs in several places including Ballycastle, but fairs were held there long before. It is on record that Gillaspick McDonnell was gored to death by a bull at a celebration of public games which took place at a fair in Ballycastle in 1570. In the early days the fair lasted a full week. When the railway opened in 1880 it reduced to four days and to two around 1910. It was held towards the end of the month, and not at the beginning as its name would imply. Traditionally the first day was devoted to the sale of cattle, horses, sheep and pigs, and the remainder to enjoyment. This is summed up in an article in The Coleraine Chronicle of 30 August 1862: This Donnybrook of the North commenced on Tuesday last, when business and not fun is the principal element. There was a large number of small ‘shelties’, a vast number of sheep from Rathlin and a pretty good show of black cattle. Business was pretty brisk and good animals changed hands at remunerative prices. The fair was continued on Wednesday, when the town was crowded with well-dressed country folk of both sexes. Amusements of a class characteristic of this fair were duly patronised. The fair lasted until Thursday, though to those who have seen previous fairs, the last appeared rather thinly attended and the fun neither so fast nor so furious. Years ago people came from miles away just to attend. They came over the sea from Islay and Raghery. The Islay fishermen came in their luggers [small vessel with sails] to sell their dried fish, stayed for a week and took back with them such things as bricks, oil lamps and hand-made boots. The Raghery (Rathlin) men came to sell their sheep and cattle. The Islay connection died out before the First World War but to this day the Rathlin folk still come to the fair. Locals went down to the sea front at night to join them in music and dancing, for the visitors lived and slept on their boats and entertained themselves while they were there. Dancing also went on in the public houses and in various halls throughout the town. A visitor to the fair remembers two hill farmers arriving at one of the dances, ‘Farmers came, you know, the sheep men off the mountains; an’ they would a’ brought their dog to the dance. They brought their dog to the fair an’ then they brought him to the dance.’ In those days the town thronged with cattle and cattle dealers, pigs, Cushendall ponies, roulette men, old clothes vendors and showmen of all descriptions. There was an Indian fire-eater who chewed tow [fibres of flax] soaked in paraffin – then set a match to it. Clouds of smoke came from his nose and mouth. Another man danced on broken glass in his bare feet. A third could balance a cart wheel on his chin. Buck Alex (all the way from Belfast) appeared from time to time with his tawny African lion. Eli the Jew came with his gaming stall. The Lammas Fair coincided with the quarterly hiring fair, which was one of seventeen fairs being held in the town at the turn of the twentieth century. Hiring started about ten o’clock and went on for most of the day. The saddest sight at the fair was the little group of workhouse boys who had barely reached their teens before they were sent out to earn a living. Up until about 1920 they were easy to recognise, with their shorn hair, hob-nailed boots and coarse woollen clothing. (Were they perhaps even glad to escape the austerity of the workhouse?) Girls were usually placed in service privately and did not often stand in the fair. Girls from further afield, especially those from Donegal, arrived in their bare feet, carrying their footwear in their bundles until they came within sight of the town. They then dusted themselves down, straightened their clothes and washed their feet, before pulling on their shoes and stockings in readiness for hiring. The usual place for doing this was at a spring well, known as ‘The Spout’ which was situated at the head of the town, on the Coleraine Road. The custom of washing feet took place at a number of fairs. The same Spout watered horses, washed potatoes and supplied the surrounding houses with water for all their domestic needs. Hiring is known to have taken place in Ballycastle as recently as 1948, though officially that was the year it should have ended. Extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. Previous extracts regarding County Antrim: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Forthcoming extracts regarding County Antrim: Part 13 |
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