Micheál Flatley

Micheál Flatley has a great reputation as a stonemason. His father and grandfather also worked with stone in an age where people had to do a bit of everything because money was scarce. Micheál discusses the craft of the stonemason. He always had a great admiration for stonework because it is so technical and much professional tuition is required to master it. The dry stone wall takes more skill to build than a mortar wall, he says. Micheál recalls some Halloween traditions and the games played in earlier times. A bath of water had coins put into it, which had to be taken out by mouth and an apple hung from a string had to be bitten without use of one’s hands. He also has memories of the travelling folk from the country who exchanged tin cans for a bit of food and hay for their ponies. Micheál discusses the holy wells and the tradition of people leaving three pebbles in a mound which eventually grew into a cairn. We hear of the folklore of monasteries, the Vikings and stories of forts and fairies.