Chalk Sunday -Salt Monday or off to the Skelligs!

IThe difficulties of being single today are nothing compared to in the past.
 Imagine having salt thrown at you to 'preserve you' , being sent to the Skelligs, being 'chalked' or having 'raddle put on you' . Well that's what would have happened to you in times gone by if you were still single after Shrovetide.  In the past in Ireland Shrovetide  was known as the 'Marrying Season' and if you hadn't married by Lent then you had neglected your social duty.

In different parts of the country those still single after Shrove Tuesday had to endure various tricks and humiliations.
Today is  'Salt Monday'   -the first  Monday after the beginning of Lent  and in the past you would have been sprinkled with salt if you were single today.
Salt was sprinkled on bachelors and spinsters ‘to preserve them hale and hearty until next shrove!’ In Dunmore this was done on the day after Ash Wednesday, Ballinrobe on the first Monday in Lent but for many it was on Shrove Tuesday. “Shrove Tuesday was salting Tuesday, they’d be “peggin salt” that day. Did you ever hear of that? Well killing pigs and they had that coarse salt and they’d be throwing salt, but some of the women that would be getting married, ‘twould cause a row, you shouldn’t do that because they wouldn’t be married that year.”

Chalk Sunday was the first Sunday of Lent and this was another day of tricks and humiliations for those who didn't manage to make it up the aisle before the marrying time. Also known as Domhnach na Smut or Puss Sunday -smut is an Irish word for means a sulky expression and this day was called Sunday of the frowning faces due to the unhappiness of the women who didn't get a man!
The Duchas Schools Collection  offers a great insight into life and folklore in Ireland collected in the 1930's in Ireland.  Below is a description of Chalk Sunday from a Leitrim National School.

Chalk Sunday from  the first Sunday in Lent Kevin Danaher's The Year in Ireland.
''In the villages of rural Munster in the latter part of the 19th century it was customary to mark the coats of unfortunate men who had derelicted their social duty by remaining unmarried throughout Shrove with stripes and squiggles of chalk. Young boys were encouraged to join in the "sport" and would jump out on the unsuspecting bachelor and ruin his good coat. Sometimes this Sunday was called Puss Sunday, apparently because those who had not married had " a puss on them" with disappointment. A puss is Irish slang for a scowl.''


Illustrated London News, March 19, 1859 from Maggie Blanck website

It's interesting to find traditions from the past and Maggie Blanck website is a labour of love -here's a description of chalk Sunday in Kilkenny.

Chalk Sunday in the County of Kilkenny, Ireland

The First Sunday in Lent is styled "Chalk Sunday" form a custom indulged in by the village belles of Kilkenny of chalking all over the clothes of inveterate bachelors who have eluded the trammels of Hymen during the preceding Shrovetide, which season is looked forward to by the unmarried portion of the Irish peasantry as the period of the year in which those who are inclined to commence housekeeping are induced to make up their minds on that important subject ere the commencement of Lent; for during that season all matrimonial transactions are suspended; and those who allow Shrovetide to glide by unheeded generally remain "in maiden meditation fancy free" until that time twelve months, when another opportunity of committing matrimony is afforded them. When an unlucky wight of the bachelor genus appears abroad in his Sunday suit on this day, on his way either to or from church, he is sure to be surrounded by a group of mischievous merry maidens each armed with a lump of chalk. Resistance is useless, for should he escape one party he is certain of being caught by another; until, at last he is striped all over in such a style of variegation as might excite the envy of a harlequin. This operation is intended to mark him out for the special example of the class to which he voluntarily belongs and to afford amusement to the neighbors. Our engraving is from a Sketch by Edmond FitzPatrick.

Those being 'chalked' didn't always take to kindly to it especially if it got out of hand!
Chalking of bachelors in Limerick in the led to 'The Siege of Clampett Row'  in the 1870's as taken from this article on Limerick City website


Chalking seems tame compared  to the use of sheep raddle as described by a Clare woman to Cormac Mac Connell on Irish Culture & Customs Website.
''One of my favorite Irish columnists is Cormac MacConnell. A couple of years ago, he wrote of one Mary Guerin from County Clare, who, at 96, was still as sharp as a tack. She well remembered every child in the parish coming to Mass equipped with a stick of chalk in hand. Chuckling like a child, she recalled that there were a lot of people, especially the old bachelors, who would lash out at the children on Chalk Sunday to try and prevent the mark of their lonesomeness....or failure....being marked starkly across their backs going into the chapel. She also remembered that anyone who was likely to be chalked would never wear their Sunday best. But surely, wouldn't chalk brush off easily enough? "Yes," said Mary - "but not the raddle that we used if we couldn't get the chalk."
Now this was real devilment, because raddle is the red and powerful marker which, to this day, is smeared on the undersides of breeding rams during sheep-mating season on the mountains. A ewe who has a romantic encounter with a ram will have her fleece marked with the raddle. Thus, a farmer will know which of his ewes might be expected to become a mother and which of them had yet to mate.''



Off to the Skelligs -

If being chalked or covered in raddle wasn't enough  enough then in the South of Ireland you could end you going off to the rock or the Skelligs which was later banned as it meant they had more fun than was deemed right as it they should have being doing penance instead of enjoying themselves and therefore was banned. This description from sacred texts gives an insight into what happened on the  Skellig's  and this description is from the Duchas  schools collection. 
THE Skellig Rocks are situated about eleven miles from the mainland, and are considered of great sanctity. In the Middle Ages, during the penitential weeks of Lent, the monks. used to leave the adjacent convent and retire to the Skelligs Rocks for silence, prayer, and abstinence. Several ancient stone-roofed cells are still in existence at the top of the rock, showing where they dwelt. These cells are of the most ancient cyclopean order of building known in Ireland, and are far older than the church near them, which does not date earlier than the seventh century.

Certainly no place more awful in its loneliness and desolation could be imagined than the summit of the bleak rock, reached only by a narrow way, almost inaccessible, even to those accustomed to climb precipitous paths, but which makes the ordinary traveller giddy with fear and dread.

As marriages were not allowed in Lent, it became a custom for the young people of both sexes to make a pilgrimage to the Skellig Rocks during the last Lenten week. A procession was formed of the young girls and bachelors, and tar-barrels were lighted to guide them on the dangerous paths. The idea was to spend the week in prayer, penance, and lamentation; the girls praying for good husbands, the bachelors repenting of their sins. But the proceedings gradually degenerated into such a mad carnival of dancing, drinking, and fun, that the priests denounced the pilgrimage, and forbade the annual migration to the Skelligs. Still the practice was continued until the police had orders to clear the rocks. Thus ended the ancient custom of "going to the Skelligs: "for the mayor having pronounced judgement over the usage as "subversive of all morality and decorum," it was entirely discontinued; and the wild fun and frolic of the Skelligs is now but a tradition preserved in the memory of the oldest inhabitant.''