Me Irish Culture

Are there any traditions left in Ireland when it comes to Easter? Personally I believe it still is a popular time as it has been in the past. I was surprised to see so many people not eat meat on Good Friday, including myself, but also that pubs still remained shut.

I always enjoyed Easter at home. On Good Friday our family would attend mass together, usually at 12 noon. On arrival back home our father would have prepared a large pot of fish stew, although it stank the house it was really tasteful. Saturdays would have us out buying new outfits for Easter mass, trying to keep 5 children presentable looking always proved a challenge for my mother & father.

Every year we would attend Easter mid-night mass on Saturday together, as most families in the local community did. I always disliked mid-night mass, I always seen it as the longest mass of the year, well in our parish anyway. It would be attended by the local Bishop who always had something extra to say but also the parish orchestra would seem to blow their trumpets for all entireties.

Although we officially had attended mass on Easter and followed our holy obligation our family still had to attend mass on Sunday at 12 noon. As a kid I hated this, it was too much of a hassle and there was always a good film on T.V. but worse that Bishop was there again! I think my mother fancied him. After our re-visit to Chapel we would all sit down in front of a big meal, usually made up of chicken, ham, potatoes amongst the best selection of vegetables. The meal itself was enough to feed the thousands and I still find it amazing that we still had the ability to stuff our faces afterwards with Easter eggs.

So far this year Easter has been enjoyable even though I had to work on Good Friday. With good weather finally hitting us I’ll leave Dublin later to make the journey home to spend time with the family on Easter Sunday & Monday. Then it’s off to Belfast to catch a flight across Europe.

On a note of the remembrance of the 1916 Easter Rising, there is a parade starts at noon at the GPO in O’Connell Street. President Mc Aleese and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will be attending. The parade is expecting thousands but won’t be as big as the 90th anniversary last year.

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