That reply, last year, re The Festival of Lughnasa was very poor, especially as the scholar most associated with research into the subject, Máire Mac Neill, lived for many years in Corofin, Co. Clare: She is the author of
The Festival of Lughnasa (1962, 1983). Her burial place is Ruan (new) graveyard.
She explains that the Festival of Lughnasa was celebrated at the end of July, as well as in August – hence my atonement at the end of July this year for not mentioning her last year.
Clarelibrary.ie has this piece on her:
https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/cocla ... cneill.htm
I haven’t read Máire Mac Neill’s book, but I see from this thesis by Seámus Mac Gabhann, that survivals of the ancient Lughnasa festival were identified by her at a hundred and ninety-five locations in Ireland. “In the case of ninety five of these, the celebrations took place on mountains or hills.”
http://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/770/1/Landsmarks.pdf.
According to this Wikipedia entry on the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage, which traditionally takes place on the last Sunday of July, “MacNeill conjectured that the pilgrimage pre-dates Christianity and was originally a ritual associated with the festival of Lughnasagh but there is no archaeological evidence of this being true.”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croagh_Patrick. But I think it is reasonable to assume that the pilgrimage is remnant of the Festival of Lughnasa.
The names Garland Sunday and Bilberry Sunday are the names used in modern times, but, according to this piece, in ainm.ie, “Garland Sunday” was pronounced “Garlic Sunday” in county Clare (see second paragraph):
https://www.ainm.ie/Bio.aspx?ID=1583
This Obituary for Máire Mac Neill, by Maureen Murphy, describes
The Festival of Lughnasa as a magisterial study of the Celtic Harvest Festival:
http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/NMAJ%2 ... embers.pdf
Sheila