Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh
Also called	Lúnasa (Modern Irish) Lùnastal (Scottish Gaelic) Luanistyn (Manx Gaelic)
Observed by	Historically: Gaels Today: Irish people, Scottish people, Manx people, Celtic neopagans
Type	Cultural, Pagan (Celtic polytheism, Celtic Neopaganism, Wicca)
Significance	Beginning of the harvest season
Begins	Northern Hemisphere: Sunset on July 31 Southern Hemisphere: Sunset on January 31
Ends	Northern Hemisphere: Sunset on August 1 Southern Hemisphere: Sunset on February 1
Celebrations	Offering of First Fruits Bonfires Feasting Handfasting
Related to	Calan Awst, Lammas

Lughnasadh (pronounced LOO-nə-sə; Irish: Lúnasa; Scottish Gaelic: Lùnastal; Manx: Luanistyn) is a traditional Gaelic holiday celebrated on 1 August. It originated as a harvest festival, corresponding to the Welsh Calan Awst and the English Lammas.

In 1962 The Festival of Lughnasa, a study of Lughnasadh by folklorist Máire MacNeill, was published. MacNeill drew on medieval writings and on surveys and studies from throughout Ireland and Britain. Her conclusion was that the evidence testified to an ancient Celtic festival on 1 August that involved the following:

[A] solemn cutting of the first of the corn of which an offering would be made to the deity by bringing it up to a high place and burying it; a meal of the new food and of bilberries of which everyone must partake; a sacrifice of a sacred bull, a feast of its flesh, with some ceremony involving its hide, and its replacement by a young bull; a ritual dance-play perhaps telling of a struggle for a goddess and a ritual fight; an installation of a head on top of the hill and a triumphing over it by an actor impersonating Lugh; another play representing the confinement by Lugh of the monster blight or famine; a three-day celebration presided over by the brilliant young god or his human representative. Finally, a ceremony indicating that the interregnum was over, and the chief god in his right place again.^[9]

People climbing Croagh Patrick on "Reek Sunday"

Lughnasadh celebrations were commonly held on hilltops. Traditionally, people would climb hills on Lughnasadh to gather bilberries, which were eaten on the spot or saved to make pies and wine.^[10] It is thought that Reek Sunday—the yearly pilgrimage to the top of Croagh Patrick in County Mayo in late July—was originally a Lughnasadh ritual.^[11] As with the other Gaelic seasonal festivals (Imbolc, Beltane and Samhain), the celebrations involved a great feast.^[12] In the Scottish Highlands, people made a special cake called the lunastain, which was also called luinean when given to a man and luineag when given to a woman. This may have originated as an offering to the gods.^[13]
Another custom that Lughnasadh shared with the other Gaelic festivals was the lighting of bonfires and visiting of holy wells. The ashes from Lughnasadh bonfires would be used to bless fields, cattle and people.^[14] Visitors to holy wells would pray for health while walking sunwise around the well. They would then leave offerings; typically coins or clooties (see clootie well).^[15]
In Gaelic Ireland, Lughnasadh was also a favored time for handfastings — trial marriages that would generally last a year and a day, with the option of ending the contract before the new year, or formalizing it as a lasting marriage.^{[7][16][17][18]}

Modern Lughnasadh customs