I viewed three of those videos from the link you provided today. Thanks.

I did note the black caped Obby Oss in the one YouTube video which was very much like the description in the book. And I also noted that there were snare drums and lots of accordions in those videos, but I didn't see or hear any flutes, fiddles, and whistles, and bodhrans-nor did I see any women wearing bluebell flowers and hazel twigs or men holding long pointy sticks (which I presume are phallic symbols). Furthermore, I didn't see any "grotesque masks and men wearing capes" that were mentioned in that novel. But this might mean that the celebrations had changed in details over time.

While that is interesting, what I'm most interested is information about the meaning of the rituals which probably can't be found by viewing videos unless that information is written in the video summary or readers write about it in their comments.

Prior to reading that chapter in that novel, for instance, I never thought of Obby Oss as a sea horse, and I didn't think about the celebration as having anything to do with the sea.

I know that I have expressed my opposition to the blackening up custom-which I didn't see in those videos by the way, but I shared those excerpts, and am asking those questions out of genuine interest-admittedly as an outsider- in how traditional customs continue and change, and what those customs mean to those who maintain them.