Battle of the Buckets for our red-hot sinners
THERE were more burnt body parts in this country town last week than on the ubiquitous barbecues, as we swapped overcast skies for casting off our clothes. Yes, when a heatwave hits hard, we Paddies respond by hitting back with twice the gusto.
It’s no wonder that the summer solstice — which was originally a pagan fire festival — is so popular. We seem to view high temperatures as permission to party, so maybe that’s why we also have a tendency to be hot headed, while a famous case known as The Battle of the Buckets suggests that Catholicism didn’t curb our fiery characters.
The incendiary incident happened in the early 1930s, when huge fanfare and parades surrounded the feast of Corpus Christi. Our thoughts in those devout days were not of fun in the sun but rather of pipping neighbouring communities to the post in the Theological Tidy Towns that was the midsummer Corpus Christi procession.
Indeed, a Sacred Heart lamp burned day and night in most homes across Ireland — a constant reminder of the never ceasing presence of God in our midst. Not that we let His celestial company get in the way of our less-thanspiritual spats — even when they concerned our attempts to venerate him.
The Battle of the Buckets that erupted in a nearby town — between two feuding groups of females — started because of an unfortunate misunderstanding the day before the Corpus Christi parade. A couple of cheeky bovines being herded through the squeaky-clean streets took a fancy to the ivy wreaths that some hard-working women had proudly made and pinned to their front doors.
Maybe those virtuous viragos were too busy adorning the church altar to notice the cattle chomping away on their delicious displays — for they instead suspected a rival bunch of biddies of being so jealous that they had spitefully mangled their masterpieces.
The fuming females held their fire until the procession and mass were over. Then they confronted their alleged saboteurs when they all gathered to collect water at the Abbey Well. Dialogue soon came to a (hot) head, resulting in dozens of warring women belting the bejaysus out of each other with their buckets.
A young Philip O’Keeffe, who was picking mushrooms with his pal Sean Holden in an adjoining field, decided to investigate after hearing the loud racket. The two lads scampered home in excitement to alert their parents after witnessing the clashing women.
The battle fizzled out only after the intervention of a nun and a friar, who came running across the meadow, gesticulating frantically at the feisty females to put down their arms. The pious peacemakers eventually managed to negotiate a ceasefire — but only after confiscating the waterholding weapons. For we may be a barrel of laughs when the sun is shining — but rain on our parade and we’ll make you cry buckets.