Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Bit of a treat for you now. This is from the RT archives, OK? So, and this is to mark the traditional start of Irish summer on May 1st, which is on Friday, right? One of the less well-known of the Irish traditions associated with May Day
Chapter 2: What is the tradition of dew rolling in Irish culture?
is Dew Rowling, that's D-E-W Rowling, in the nude. And who better to fill us in than the late and much-missed Mancon McGann. Here he is in 2017 from the series Mancon's A to Z of Ireland.
Okay, so it's just approaching dawn on the 1st of May. And so you probably know what that means. It's time for some dew rolling, you know, rolling in the early morning dew. We've been doing this for thousands of years on this island, getting up early on May Day and either wiping the morning dew on our faces or ideally stripping off and actually rolling one's entire body in the grass.
Like I've chosen to do the latter. so I'm now about to go outside hoping that there's not many people out okay it's a little bit chillier than I hoped it would be I'm whispering just so that I don't wake up the pigs that would make it a lot more difficult Okay, there's a lovely dew on the grass. I'm just going to first just wipe my face in it first. See if that works. Okay.
Now, this is immediately meant to make me beautiful all year round. And it's meant to... ensure that my skin remains pure and with no blemishes on it. But that's just my face. What I need to do is roll around. I need to find some patch where there aren't too many thistles and stones. There's no sign of anybody, thank God, because I really don't want everyone to see me naked.
This has been a long tradition, like every great witch you can think of, from Biddy Early to Alice Kittler in Kilkenny, would have been doing this on the same day, dawn on the 1st of May. Even Catherine of Aragal in England, in 1515 on the 1st of May, she led 25 of her ladies-in-waiting into the wood to do this. Okay, I'm just delaying now, I'm going to do it. I'm a...
quickly taking just my jacket off which was giving me some protection and I'm about to lie down oh god okay and I'm rolling I'm rolling I'm rolling in the morning dew ah I am doing what our Celtic ancestors have done for centuries. Yeah. I don't know why everyone isn't doing this.
Great. Just to clarify for anyone who came in late into that piece, what he was doing was dew rolling, rolling around in the dew for May Day, which is an old Irish tradition. If you came in late to that, it might have sounded like he was up to something else. That was the late, great Man Con McGann from the 2017 Red Hair Media production for RT Radio 1, Man Con's A to Z of Ireland.
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