A priest told me that he met a man going to Mass the other day with his father's boots tied up in a red handkerchief. The priest asked him why. He said he could get no one to wear them, so he was forced to take them to Mass the three Sundays himself. The Father said: "You'd be doing better for your father's soul to give the boots to the first poor man you meet, instead of going on with this superstition." The man replied: "It's done you no good, your Reverence, being over yonder (the priest had been on the Scottish Mission). We've the Faith here."
When the coffin comes to Abbey Island it is carried once round the burial ground in the direction of the sun. It used to be carried round three times, but is done so no longer. The coffin is then placed beside the spot where the grave is to be dug, and the nails are unscrewed so that the body will rise easily on the Last Day.
The last person buried in the island has to draw water for the others. Not long ago there used to be terrible fights if two funerals arrived at the same time, each trying to get its corpse buried first, so that the other would have to draw the water. When Mrs. Sullivan died (1902), it was some months before the next funeral in the Abbey Island, and Bridget said to Miss Sullivan it was a long time her poor mother was drawing water.
It is customary to take Holy Water to a funeral in an uncorked bottle. The Holy Water is sprinkled and the empty bottle left behind. This last is essential.
On St. John's Eve we lit bonfires. The people call them bonefires, and the old people put bones in them. The Irish word is Teinne Cnamh, literally "bonefire."
The priest said to an old man of eighty-one, "Why don't you spray your potatoes?" "I do," said he," "but I don't hold with the Department's spraying. Every St. John's Eve for the last fifty years I've sprayed my potatoes with Holy Water and plenty of it, and it's worked well, and why would I be changing now."
