With blazing sods of turf in their hands, the Wren Boys marched through Listowel

Cormac Fitzgerald Rockin' the Suburbs

In this series, journalist and spoken word artist Cormac Fitzgerald travels to a different town or suburb each week to write about the gigs and cultural experiences you rarely see covered by Irish media outlets. 

This week’s subject: Watching the Wren Boys at the Harvest Festival in Listowel, County Kerry.

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DECKED OUT IN colourful jackets, vests, hats and other regalia, and lit by blazing sods of turf stuck to the end of pikes, the Brosna Wren Boys made their way down Church Street in Listowel last Friday night.

Led by the local storyteller and entertainer Frances Kennedy, about 50 people in total strode towards the stage set up on the crowded town square, belting out a traditional march on accordions, flutes, banjos, fiddles and bodhráns.

First, the Bean and Fear an Tí took to the stage, dressed in more drab greys and browns. These are the man and woman of the house, who the Wren Boys come to pay a visit on.

Frances Kennedy came on next as the leader or “King” (though she is a woman) of the Borsna group, who duly followed her took up their seats and perches on the stage. Though called the “Wren Boys”, there were men and woman, boys and girls of every age among them.

What followed over the next 40 minutes was a mixture of traditional music, dancing, singing and storytelling rooted in the traditions of the town of Brosna and the surrounding areas of the Sliabh Luachra region of north-east Kerry, about a 20 minute drive from Listowel.

There were well-known north Kerry set dances like the Blackbird and the Patsy Haley, as well as some Kerry polkas and some fast-paced reels thrown in. There was individual Irish dancing, singing and storytelling. And most of all, there was music.

For the 67th year (with one or two missed along the way), the All-Ireland Wren Boys Championship was well underway.

Hunting for the wren

The tradition of the wren stretches back many centuries in Irish history, with its exact origins lost in the mists of time. It centres around Lá an Dreoilín/Wren’s Day, which takes place on St Stephen’s Day, the first day after Christmas.

Traditionally on this day, the men of the locality would go out and attempt to capture a wren.

In later years, this morphed into a day of music and dancing, as wren boys would dress in masks and colourful costumes, sometimes made from straw, and go from house to house playing traditional music, dancing, drinking and collecting money

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The traditional still lives on in a number of areas, most notably Dingle in west Kerry, where 26 December is a busy day of music and festivities. 

The All-Ireland Wren Boys Championship was founded in Listowel in the 1950s by a group of locals, among them the writer and publican (and Listowel legend) John B Keane, in an effort to keep the tradition alive. 

Large groups from towns and villages from across the country would descend on Listowel on the Friday night of the Listowel Harvest Festival.

Closely linked with local Comhaltas groups – organisations dedicated to protecting and spreading Ireland’s cultural traditions – they would bring their own music, dances and traditions to the stage in an attempt to woo the judges and become the All-Ireland Wren Boys Champions.

“Going back to the sixties to win the Wren Boys All-Ireland was major coveted title,” Frances Kennedy told me.

You’d have groups coming from Armagh, from Leitrim, from Kilashandra in Cavan, and lots of other places.

“When I was a young fella they used to get groups from Cavan and Meath, Tipperary and Limerick, Clare and north Cork,” said Christy Walsh, a local publican and organiser of the competition.

They’d all take part, and there’d be a few different groups from Kerry.

The Listowel Harvest Festival has taken place at the end of September every year stretching back to the middle of the 19th century. Today, the festival is mostly known for the high-profile horse-racing that takes place over the course of the week.

While the racing has always been at the centre of the festival, Walsh remembers a time when there were many more harvest-themed events.

“When I was younger I remember you’d have publicans and barman races… There were donkey derbys and pig racing, fancy dress parades and a rake of different things.”

Most of these events have disappeared over the years, and the Wren Boys showcase has also struggled. Last year, it didn’t take place for the first time (excluding during the Covid-19 pandemic) since the 1950s.

This year, far from competitors coming from across the country, just two Kerry groups took part.

Hunting for the title

But what great groups those two were!

As well as Brosna, the more local Ballydonoghue Wren Boys opened the night’s performances to the delight and cheers from the crowd.

As is the tradition, they too came with the blazing sods through the crowd and, it has to be said, more colourful and diverse costumes than their Brosna counterparts.

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The Ballydonoghue “king” was local man Paddy McElligot, decked out in a flowing red cape and looking like a friendly devil in a crown of horns.

Again, the stage was packed with upwards of 50 people, from small children up to pensioners, and there was all sorts of music, dancing, storytelling and song.

Ballydonoghue had that little bit extra on the night, including pantomime horse, a rousing rendition of the Kerry classic An Poc ar Buile and, if that wasn’t enough, their Fear an Tí threw sweets into the crowd. 

All in all, it was enough to give Ballydonoghue the edge, and they were crowned the All Ireland Wren Boys Champions. 

But, all was not lost, with Frances Kennedy securing the coveted title of ‘The King of the Wren Boys’ for the fifth year in a row. 

“I was the first woman to win King of the Wren in the history of the competitions and to stay King of the Wren,” Kennedy told me.

And we will be back again next year again.

Why does she think there are far fewer people taking part in the competition today than in years gone by?

“It takes an awful lot to get a group together. It’s a huge commitment and it’s very hard to raise a group now,” Kennedy tells me.

Friday, when the competition takes place, is also Ladies’ Day at the races, the busiest day of the week when all the young people head out on the town.

“All the young boys and girls they get dressed up now and they go to the races on Ladies’ Day and it can be hard to get them to take part,” she said.

Christy Walsh agrees, and said that organisers might try to move the competition to another day of the week in the future to give local groups the best chance of raising a team to take part.

“What we have done the last few years is we’ve upped the money on offer so that every group that takes part gets the same amount to go towards their local Comhaltas group,” he said.

“Four groups would be brilliant to get and a 40 minute show from each group to make a proper competition out of it… but we’d love to hold onto this tradition as long as we can.”

The groups might not have come from far and wide this year to take part on the competition, but standing in the packed square, watching people of all ages singing and dancing and having fun on the stage, it was clear that the tradition of the Wren Boys is still alive in this corner of Kerry.