Caoimhín's Content

Today’s article is connected to an Irish language video, this means that there will be a lot of Irish words and translations throughout the piece. We will be looking at 4 particular days during the year, one of which has just passed, the 1st of August. August in Irish is Lughnasadh, and the same name is used to refer to the first day of the month, though it is often spelled Lughnasa in English. There are 4 days like this during the year, Lughnasadh for the first day of August, Bealtaine for the first day of May, Samhain for the first day of November, and Imbolc for the first day of February. The Modern Irish name for February is Feabhra, so that name doesn’t go with the pattern that has been set up by the 3 other days, where the first day and the month itself share a name. In English, Bealtaine is often spelled Beltane, but the other two remain the same.

In modern Irish we use the name Feabhra for February, the second month of the year. There are a couple of months in Ireland which have Irish names, but the Irish name comes from other languages, often Latin. For example Eanair or Eanáir, the Irish for January, comes from the Latin Ianuarius and Feabhra from the Roman festival of Februa. There are various other months with names that are a little bit older, like Bealtaine and Samhain, as well as other months like Meitheamh for July. The Irish for September and October are native as well, Méan Fomhair and Deireadh Fomhair, literally the middle and end of the harvest or Autumn. Names like those come from Irish and Old Irish, but when Christianity came to Ireland it brought some influence from the Romans, even though the Romans never reached Ireland itself. Through Christianity and through the monks that came to Ireland, Irish got a few words from Latin. Even the word “eaglais”, meaning a church, comes from the Latin ecclesia. It is a borrowed word, but it doesn’t come from English or any modern language, and has been part of Irish for hundreds of years.

We already had a look at the sky for Lughnasadh this year, when we looked at the August sky more generally, but we have passed it now for this year. If we push ahead to next year, to 2025, we can get a preview of next years Lughnasadh. We still have three planets in the morning sky, but instead of Jupiter, Mars and Saturn we will have Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. We will still have the planet Neptune and Uranus, though Neptune will be practically on top of Saturn by next year.

These days are the “laethanta ráithe”, usually translated as quarter days. However, “ráithe” is specifically a term for three months, a quarter of a year, there is another word for a quarter in other contexts, “ceathrú”. This is a bit like the term fortnight. A fortnight is two weeks, or half a month, but it is used only when measuring time, it isn’t synonymous with half more generally.

In English, these days are often called cross-quarter days or “laethanta tras-ceathrú” in Irish, as they are not the only way to quarter a year, and these days “cross” the other system of quartering, which we will get to soon.

Moving ahead this year to the next quarter day we will get, Samhain, the first day of the month of November. On the morning of Samhain day, Mars and Jupiter will be quite high enough in the sky already. If we look instead to a little after sunset, just before before 11 o’clock, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, all three of them will be up in the evening sky. Uranus and Neptune will be up with them, in similar relative positions to this month. Samhain is the first day of November, but the night before this is one of the most famous nights that comes from a Celtic festival, Oíche Shamna on the 31st of October, now usually called Halloween. These days, the quarter days, were very important for the Celts, but it isn’t the sort of quarter of the year that we’re used to. The normal modern way of quartering of the year generally uses the seasons, summer, winter, spring and autumn. Related to the seasons are four different days, the equinoxes and the solstices. There are two of each, and the next one we will get is the winter solstice. Moving ahead to the 21st of December, this si the date of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. I am after talking about the equinox and solstices before, so you can go back and take a look at my previous posts to learn more, including another Irish language video.

Continuing to push ahead into next year, we will come up to the spring equinox, the day on which the night and day are of equal length, around the 21st of March. The equinoxes and solstices are a little bit easier to notice during the day. The Sun will be at its lowest point on the 21st of December for the winter solstice and at its highest point on the 21st of June for the summer solstice. If we move to either point halfway between the two solstices, those are our equinoxes, the two days right between the two solstices. This is another way to split the year into four quarters. In between the winter solstice and spring equinox is the first day of February, Imbolc, and this day is halfway through or halfway between the two. This means we can cut up the year into eight pieces, with one eighth between the quarters and the equinoxes and solstices. There is one eighth of the year between the winter solstice and Imbolc, and then another eighth between Imbolc and the spring equinox. This puts the Irish quarter days in between, or across, the more astronomically motivated quarters, and this leads to the English name of cross-quarter days.

Pushing past Imbolc and past the spring solstice, we move through April to the first of May or Bealtaine. This day is often called May Day in English, similar to how Bealtaine is the name of the day and the name of the month in Irish. Imbolc also has a different name which is common in modern times, Saint Bridget’s Day or Lá Féile Bríde. People don’t call them Bealtaine or Imbolc very often in Ireland today outside of Irish. Looking forward to 2025 again, the next Bealtaine we will see, on the morning of Bealtaine, Venus will be visible. These day’s were very useful historically and still have a cultural significance for many today. Breaking up the year was certainly one of their functions, and it could be just as useful as using the equinoxes and solstices. The summer solstice is the date when the day is at its longest point, but the days will have been quite long for a couple of weeks before hand and a couple of weeks after as well. Around the equinoxes, the length of day and night remain pretty similar, until you are a few weeks away. The quarter days are able to cut right into the middle of this difference. They help to show if the days long or short. It is often not as important to tell if the days are getting longer or shorter. If a day is short but getting longer, it’s still a short day, and that’s one of the important things about these quarter days,

Those are the cross-quarter days of the year, Imbolc the first, Bealtaine the second, Lughnasadh third and fourthly Samhain. The next one that we’re going to get is the Festival Day of Samhain, and Halloween before that. I know that Halloween is a little more more famous, there is a celebration for Halloween in almost every country around the world. Part of this may be due to the influence of Christianity on those days in modern times, there is a connection between Christianity and the English names for Oíche Shamna, Halloween, and Samhain, All-Hallows day. All Hallows day is often called all saints day today, with hallows being blessed or sacred things. The Eve of All-Hallows, or All-Hallows Eve became Hallow’een and then Halloween as it is today. The words Samhain, Bealtaine, Imbolc and Lughnasadh however come from Irish, and from the Celts more broadly. It wasn’t just the Irish alone that thought these days were important, the Celts from Scotland and Wales, as well as the Isle of Mann and other places with Celtic people also celebrated these dates. There were traditions built around these days.

One of the traditions that was associated with the quarter days was one of forgiveness and acceptance. In the past, before more formal legal systems, wrongs done by one person to another could escalate into feuds, sometimes lasting generations. Once formal systems of reparations and restitutions came into being, it was important to ensure that they were excepted, that feuds didn’t continue after the reparations had been paid. The cross-quarter days acted as a time-limit, once they passed the disagreement needed to end, especially if punishments had been handed out. Even though people may have wanted to dislike the person who had wronged them, in small communities such tensions could put a lot of pressure on society. Refusing to provide a service to someone because they had wronged you, even if they had apologized and submitted to any rulings against them, could have negative effects on the group as a whole. To avoid this, the cross-quarter days were used as a marker, after which both parties needed to move on. This forgiveness and acceptance happened every three months and it may be a nice thing to remember day, especially with another quarter day coming up in just a couple of months.

I do hope that you enjoyed this little description of these days and their origin. If you did and would like to see more, please consider subscribing to this website and to my YouTube channel. You may not be able to see these days in the traditional sense, but I hope you enjoy the up coming festival of Halloween with the knowledge that it stems from Samhain, one of the four traditional Celtic divisions of the year. I will no doubt have plenty of pieces up between now and then, so I hope that you come back to check them out.