Analysis: The clúdog tradition saw children in Ireland going door-to-door at Easter collecting eggs (or 'guggies') for an outdoor feast
In the pre-trick-or-treat era, the language of Halloween rituals and customs held more local expressions and colloquialisms. 'Are you going around for Halloween?' and ‘have you anything for Halloween?’ embodied a sense of self-awareness and self-determination on the part of children and young adults as they planned and enacted their engagement with traditional practices.
The ‘going around’ element signalled pre-planning, often group action, and connection with the local community, while ‘anything for Halloween?’, was the collection aspect that presupposed a good and profitable reception for the children as they called from house to house, so that they could continue with their evening feasting with hauls of food and money. Pre-planning, action, and partying were the main elements of the event, and we tend to think that this was confined to Halloween festivities.
But this type of event, with a strong connection to children and young people, was also a feature of Easter celebrations in Ireland. There was some overlap in terminology and character between the two calendar celebrations and with aspects of the mumming tradition. The practice of going around for the clúdóg, having a clúdóg and eating a clúdóg are all detailed in the folk accounts in the National Folklore Collection.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's CountryWide, folklorist Shane Lehane on why we have eggs at Easter and the folklore associated with Easter
The set elements of the phenomenon are not unlike those of Halloween, and they incorporate pre-planning, collection and feasting with an element of superstitious practice. The term clúdóg or clúideog, which means a batch of (Easter) eggs is a flexible one that extends to incorporate the various elements of collecting eggs, gifting eggs, and preparing and participating in an outdoor egg-eating feast that was enacted mostly by children and young people.
It is summed up in this Co Longford account from the folklore collection. "The young folk mad [sic] a great preparation for Easter. There was one particular spot where they held their annual "cludog". This consisted in building a hut in a nice sheltered spot. They also brought turf for a fire and at the appointed time all the boys and girls came laden with tea, sugar, bread, salt, eggs etc. A big fire was lighted. The eggs were put into a pot and placed over the fire until they were boiled. The tea was then made and all sat down on the grass and enjoyed the feast. Sometimes they finished up with a dance. The custom of holding a "cludog" still remains but it is confined to small children."
The practice is described by the lecturer and folklorist Kevin Danaher in his 1972 publication The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs. He suggested that the custom was confined to the northern half of the country, which correlates with the distribution detail and pattern as represented in the folk collection material, particularly the Schools' Collection. In these accounts from the 1930s, the clúdóg has strongest association with Cavan, parts of Longford and Leitrim and with some representation in Meath, Westmeath and Kildare. By the 1930s, though, the clúdog is seen as a practice that is fading in popularity or one that contributors remember only from their past.
From Design & Crafts Council Ireland, Michael Fortune from folklore.ie on cludógs and guggies at Easter
Often, the term clúdóg is mentioned in the context of an Irish word incorporated into English or remaining in use in certain districts, but without accompanying explanatory detail. Other accounts of the practice from Leitrim, Donegal and Kerry are given without reference to the term clúdóg, with the descriptions below suggesting a one-time wider distribution of practice.
From Co Leitrim: 'On Easter Saturday the boys gather up as on St. Stephen's Day but instead of money they gather eggs. When they come to every door they say: "Guggies for Easter." They usually get four eggs in every house. Then they sell the eggs and divide the money among them. On Easter Sunday the children have an outdoor feast. They make a fire out in a field and they strive to see who will eat the most eggs.'
From Co Donegal: 'The people of Ireland have many old customs. One of them is this. At Easter the people used go out the country looking for eggs. The young people would go to every house and ask for an egg or two. They would get some eggs in every house.'
From Michael Fortune, people from Screen and Castlebridge in Co. Wexford on the Easter tradition of Guggin' for Eggs
As a living tradition, the practice followed a set pattern where children called to neighbouring houses in the week before Easter or an Easter Saturday to collect their parcels of eggs. The gifts were collected in socks, baskets, or cans, and those eggs that were laid on Good Friday were marked for their special status as items with health or curative properties. The Good Friday eggs were the ones first eaten on Easter Sunday. The batches of gifted eggs were saved until Easter Sunday when they could be shared with the family with some reserved for the evening outside egg cooking and eating event.
Outdoor cooking and eating locations varied from sheltered areas in fields and under ditches, to hill tops and fairy forts. The outdoor location meant fuel supplies other than whins (gorse) and cooking and eating utensil (pots, cans, kettles, egg spoons, often homemade wooden ones) had to be brought along with the other food desirables for the feast. In the absence of a cooking pot, the eggs could be roasted in fire embers. The group feast was typically followed by singing and games.
The clúdóg is an Irish expression of the wider cultural significance of Easter eggs and the symbolic ties to spring and Christian observance. In Ireland, the clúdóg is part of a larger body of folk belief and custom around Lent, and indeed, the keeping of fowl and egg-production in general. The practice also brings additional detail with an Irish and local accent to the feast-fast axis. And from a social perspective, it is an example of the extension of charity to poorer neighbours that brought a degree of cohesion to local communities.
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, how early Irish scholars and astronomical experts helped to create Easter Sunday
But implicit in these folk accounts and descriptions are indications of how the practice may have changed over time. Some accounts allude to groups that went 'out into the country' to collect free eggs, while others detail that it was now only a children’s activity suggesting the younger people or adults may have been divested of their roles or perhaps discouraged from the practice.
Danaher’s reference to how the clúdóg was undertaken in Co Wexford in the early 19th century indicates that the custom was not welcomed in areas: "the 'Tobies' whose ruling superstition was a belief in the virtue of eggs collected at Easter. They were not much respected in general. They dressed themselves as fantastically as they could in scraps of drapery…went in companies of from four to six, and demanded their spare eggs from disturbed shopkeepers.
"As they approached farm houses in the absence of the menkind, their appearance was not agreeable in the eyes of the women…they converted part of their hoard [of eggs] into whisky… at the termination of the festival… the usages of sober and polite society were not in request.’
READ: 'Whipping the herring': how Easter used to be celebrated in Ireland
The rowdy element may have ruptured its reputation as did the associations with poverty and the negative connotations of sending children long distances to collect free eggs. The description below from Cavan details the complexities of a tradition in flux and perhaps a change in the character of neighbourliness and community cooperation:
"When the collection is finished the eggs are divided among the children who took part in collecting them, and each child brings his share home with him. These are boiled for him on Easter Sunday morning and he may eat as many as he wishes.
"The custom is disappearing gradually. People are becoming too proud to allow their children to go among the neighbours asking for clúdógs and besides the neighbours seem to have become less charitable and often refuse the clúdóg boys. A child might go five or six miles from home in search of eggs.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
