28/10/2026
𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗻𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗿𝗲
Aughnanure Castle hosted a series of events over the Halloween Bank Holiday, including an afternoon of storytelling with our best-known representative of an ancient, venerable profession, the seanchaí Eddie Lenihan.
Nowadays we think of the seanchaithe as storytellers, however they were much more than that in ancient and medieval Ireland. The word itself translates as keepers of lore, and they acted as the "living libraries" of Gaelic history and culture, by memorising and passing on the history, mythology, genealogies and laws by word of mouth. Family genealogies were recited at feasts and gatherings to remind people who was who; and also to identify the derbfine (close family), those descended from a common great-grandfather with the current taoiseach (chieftain) and had a claim to the role of elected tánaiste (successor). The seanchaithe also preserved the epic heroic cycles, such as the Ossianic / Fenian Cycle with its well-known tales of the third century Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. Indeed, the oldest copy of one of the best loved stories from the Ossianic Cycle, 𝘛𝘰́𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘵 𝘋𝘩𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘴 𝘎𝘩𝘳𝘢́𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘦 was written down in Aughnanure Castle by the scholar Dáibhídh Ó Duibhgeannáin in 1651, sent here under the patronage of Ruaridh son of Tadgh Uí Flaithbheartaigh of Oilén Ruadh (Red Island) in Lough Mask.
During the Tudor conquest of Ireland, Elizabeth I and her administration in Ireland targeted the learned orders, including poets, bards, harpers and the seanchaithe with exile or ex*****on. These were viewed as political agitators, intelligence gatherers, and the voices of rebellion. After the subsequent systematic dismantling of the Gaelic order and loss of patronage by the ruling Gaelic and Gaelicised Norman families, the formal bardic schools collapsed, with the seanchaithe reduced to wandering figures moving from village to village trading news and stories for food and accommodation. The tradition of the fireside storyteller was born.
Our second picture shows some of this year's carved turnips for Samhain (pronounced SOW-in), the Celtic festival marking the end of harvest that Halloween is based on. The Celts believed that the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was at its thinnest at Samhain, and turnips, swedes, potatoes or beets were carved with frightening faces, and with embers or candles placed inside, to ward off any unfriendly spirits who may have made their way across the barrier. 19th century Irish and Scottish immigrants to the US switched to carving pumpkins instead, as they are softer and easier to work with.
