Today is the final day of summer in the Celtic Calendar…Happy Lughnasa!
May the days of harvest be filled with abundance and delight!
As the Earth offers up her bounty, may your heart be filled with thanks.
Enjoy the coolness of the early morning air as the days move inexorably toward Autumn.
Take time to preserve your harvest for the months ahead…
Bless you all!
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As early Lughnasa transforms the permaculture gardens of Bealtaine Cottage into a colourful abundance and the harvest continues, the early days of an Irish autumn unfold.
The berries on the Hawthorn are turning colour and the magic of a warm autumn fills the air!
These mushrooms are growing today near a clump of Birch trees in the woodland gardens further down from the front of the cottage.
The willow archway here has closed in on either side as the summer growth has cast even more shade in the new woodland. Bamboo and Dogwood have almost merged to close this path. As you can see, the leaves are beginning to drop.
The entrance to the Fairy Wood is closing too…there is a lot of work ahead this Autumn as the cutback begins!
Here are the new beds by the front door of the cottage. They are filled with home-made compost and planted with Birch and Cotoneaster, both grown from seed.
I love the simplicity of creating gardens around an old cottage…fuss-free and free!
One of the evergreen trees originally by the front door has been planted in the corner. It had grown far too big for the terracotta pot.
I love the way the silvery autumn light changes the way the sitting room of the cottage looks. This is my best-loved season!
I have just returned from the wedding of my son, held over three days at Markree Castle in Sligo. My beautiful grandsons are here with me in the picture. The flowers were grown here at Bealtaine Cottage and all the guests were gifted with bags of seeds.
Lughnasa (earlier, Lughnasadh) was the feast of Lugh.
A harvest festival, its celebration marked the end of the period of summer growth and the beginning of the autumn harvest.
Its original name does not survive in popular tradition, that being now the common word in Irish (Lúnasa) for the month of August.
The festival is rather known as the Sunday of Crom Dubh (the god of harvest), or in varying areas as Lammas Sunday, Garland Sunday, Bilberry Sunday, or Fraughan Sunday.
The first weekend in August marks Ireland’s changing-of-the-season festival of Lughnasa.
The Irish playwright, Brian Friel, wrote the now famous,“Dancing at Lughnasa” which is all centred around the pivotal point in the Celtic calendar, Lughnasa.
The Celts regarded the Earth as a fertile Goddess, to be nurtured and honoured…a way of living I now follow, as a care-taker and care-giver to Mother Earth.
The gate-keeper to the sanctuary of Bealtaine Cottage.
Today is the final day of summer in the Celtic Calendar…Happy Lughnasa!
Bealtaine Cottage is also on YouTube…with over 100 videos about Permaculture, planting, growing and living.
The festival of Lughnasa honours the Celtic god Lugh of the Tuatha de Danann.
Lugh was the god of arts and crafts among Celtic tribes and Lughnasa sat high in the Calendar of festivals.
Lughnasa ushered in the harvest season.
Lughnasa was a celebration of, and for, the Divine, for a successful harvest.
This ancient festival marks the first day of autumn in the Celtic Calendar, and thus the start of the harvest season.
In Britain Lughnasa is known as Lammas, from the Anglo-Saxon hlaef-mass meaning ‘loaf-mass’.
Here in Ireland the nearest Sunday to Lughnasa was known as Cally Sunday, the traditional day to lift the first new potatoes.
The man of the house would dig the first stalk, while the woman of the house would don a new white apron and cook them.
The floor would be spread with fresh, green rushes in their honour.
Lughnasa was celebrated on the hills and mountains as well as the valleys.
Climbing a hill or mountain and celebrating with lighting a bonfire was, and remains, a tradition.
In addition to climbing hills, Lughnasa was also a time for visiting holy wells.
Lughnasa falls on August the 1st and the evening before is usually when the celebrations begin…
I am hosting an “Open Weekend,” for anyone who wishes to visit the Permaculture gardens of Bealtaine Cottage.
This will be over the weekend of the 7th and 8th of September and in aid of The Leitrim Animal Welfare Shelter, so there will be charge of ten euros per adult…and will include tea and home made cakes!
This wonderful animal sanctuary is where I have adopted two dogs from, including Jack!
If you would like to visit Bealtaine Cottage on this special open weekend, please let me know in advance, so I can make arrangements for cakes, teas and coffees to be available!
This is a link to a short film made by RTE TV all about this wonderful animal sanctuary!
Hopefully we can raise much needed funds for this cause so close to my heart!
The land approaches Lughnasa, (Lughnasadh), August and the beginning of Autumn.
Looking at the apples today on the trees at Bealtaine Cottage, it is easy to see how this is.
Harvests continue to be gathered and develop, ripening to plumpness and fullness.
Tomatoes, like the ones above, grown outdoors in areas of micro-climate warmth and shelter, continue to flower and produce.
The weather is promised good for the week ahead, as grass moves in the gentle breeze of a July afternoon…the only missing part of this picture is the beautiful Butterflies, so decimated by rain last year and almost finished off with rain and cold this summer.
There is little I can do to help this situation, other than continue to grow and plant out Buddleias and other shrubs and flowers much beloved of these fairy creatures with coloured wings.
Herbs are harvested, tied into small bunches and hung to dry in the warmth of the tunnel, with lots of air circulating, as both doors remain open day and night during summer.
Lughnasa is a harvest festival, marking the end of the period of summer growth and the beginning of the autumn harvest.
This is the time to save seed…as you can see, seed-heads have formed beautifully on the Leeks in the tunnel today.
I will save the seed of the strongest plant, for sowing next year.
Jostaberries are almost ready to harvest.
They come into season just after the Blackcurrant.
Many people think that Lughnasa was a fire festival, but it was not.
Lughnasa was associated with water and earth, as seen in decoration of wells, making of corn-dollies, decorating and adorning with flowers, and climbing mountains.
Many of the most beautiful flowers come into flower at this time…the Crocosmia by the door of the tunnel will flower over the next week or so, as will the gorgeous Shasta Daisy!
The plant just peeping into the tunnel is Lemon Balm.
Wonderful scents arise as one brushes past it!
Wood cut last winter will be ready for the barn by Lughnasa.
It dries well when stacked like this!
Lughnasa is a Celtic cross-quarter festival, meaning it is not a Solstice or an Equinox, but falls between.
Perhaps this Lughnasa you will climb a mountain, visit a Holy Well, collect Bilberries, bring in the first potatoes…all celebrations of this special, magical, Celtic Festival!
The feast of Lugh, Lughnasa, or Lughnasadh happenssoon…on the eve, which is the 31st of July. A time for a bonfire and celebrations of the harvest…celebrations here at Bealtaine Cottage will be focused around a rather small outdoor fire but with the equivalent gusto of the eve that’s in it!
The Festival of Lughnasadh
This was said to have been begun by the god Lugh as a funeral feast commemorating his foster-mother, Tailtu, who died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture. Little changed there then, as most of the agricultural work in many African countries is carried out by women!
In days of old, Lughnasadh was a favoured time for trial marriages that would generally last a year and a day, with the option of ending the contract before the new year, or later formalizing it as a more permanent marriage.
Lughnasa is the first of the three autumn harvest festivals. The Autumn Equinox and Samhain, or Halloween, being the other two.
Already there is a feel of Autumn in the air and can be seen in the plant life as harvests begin and fruits ripen on the trees. The days have shortened, now over a month past the longest day.
Here, plums ripen on one of the trees at Bealtaine Cottage and nettles produce their seeds…
And…
Flowers like this Perscaria Bistorta, a late flowering perennial, begin to show a magnificence beyond their humble beginnings!
Irish calendar
is a pre-Christian, Celtic system of keeping the year and still in popular use today to define the beginning and length of the day, the week, the month, the seasons, quarter days, and festivals.
The meteorological seasons begin on March 1, June 1, September 1, and December 1.
The Irish Calendar observes the equinoxes and solstices and has a more realistic seasonal observance…
Spring – February, March, April.
Summer – May, June, July.
Autumn – August, September, October.
Winter – November, December, January.
These seasons are much more in keeping with the observations I make here at Bealtaine Cottage and I would abide by these dates rather than any other.
