British Popular Customs, Present and Past / Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.

by T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

IRELAND.

In the midland districts of Ireland, viz., the province of Connaught, on Good Friday, it is a common practice with the lower orders of Irish Catholics to prevent their children having any sustenance, even to those at the breast, from twelve o’clock on the previous night to the same hour on Friday, and the fathers and mothers will only take a small piece of dry bread and a draught of water during the day. It is a common sight to see along the roads between the different market towns, numbers of women with their hair dishevelled, barefooted, and in their worst garments: all this is in imitation of Christ’s Passion.—Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 411.