Wren Day

The intangibility of this event lies in its merging of ancient and modern cultures and traditions from which has emerged a celebration that is as unique as it is diverse; incorporating music, song, dance, costume, parade, visual art, community collective participation and charitable goodwill. The group of practitioners is referred to as ‘wren boys’ and their leader is often dressed in costume that depicts a horse, known as ‘the hobby horse’. Much effort is put into making the straw costumes and preparing music for the day. When rival groups of wren boys meet on December 26th, there is often a battle between the horses, much of this is most reminiscent of two groups meeting during the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Lá an Dreoilín/Wrens’ Day is now and has been for many generations a highlight of the social calendar for many communities across Ireland in respect of its unique traditions and beautiful display of intergenerational custom that has provided a fabric from which to weave a tapestry of community awareness and interaction. The key practitioners are those who organise the preparatory meetings in advance, make the costumes, practise the tunes, make the refreshments for the day, transport the wren boys by bus and car, and contribute their time, money and energy into an activity by and for the local communities in Ireland. Contemporary practise can be illustrated in the celebration of the ‘wran’ in Stradbally, County Kerry. Here, a group of around 30 travel by bus throughout the parish, entering pubs and homes on a day when many elderly people and children alike are delighted to welcome visitors and comments are often associated with nostalgia and satisfaction that the tradition is still practiced. There are also people who are in the area for the festive season only and the sight of the wren is one which they bring back home on their phones with memories to recount to others. Lá an Dreoilín/Wren’s Day is a highly communal activity, with everyone welcome to participate or just sit back and enjoy the performance. Children practise their instruments all year to be able to play along as they march through the towns on the day. Public houses come alive when a group of wren boys enter and there is always an air of competition between groups as to who has the better musicians, dancers, costumes and most of all; craic. There are merely slight variations on the practise throughout the country, though some areas may be more scaled down versions of the optimal practice of towns such as Dingle in West Kerry, which is seen as one of the Wren’s Day strongholds, preserving the nuances of the tradition with pride, as is well documented by MacDonagh (1983) in ‘The Wrenboys of Dingle’. This is illustrated by the revival in recent years of the local wren in Stradbally, County Kerry. Over five years ago, Mr Ciarán Fitzgerald (RIP) and a number of friends, who had taken part in a Wren for many years in another local town, decided that the time had come to revive the Stradbally Wren. Due to typical rural population and demographic changes, the Stradbally Wren had not taken place in over forty years. With the benefit of social media and word of mouth, meetings were arranged and a core group of twenty people from Stradbally committed to taking part in the Wren. Mr Fitzgerald was chosen to take on the role of being the horse, which involves being inside a heavy costume for twelve hours. The head of the horse from the original Stradbally Wren horse was found after forty years and the Stradbally horse came back and the first Wren in over forty years was a major success with much needed funds raised for worthy charities. This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.