Well, Here in New York, we have a Wren, Droleen Tir Na Og, the Wren of the New Land... Most of us are either from Kerry, or got involved in the Wren in Kerry as I did. Droleen Tir Na Og grew out of rowing currachs, west of Ireland ocean pulling boats, here in New York, I was apprenticed to a Kerry Boat builder. We began our wren to raise money for the currach club, and now it goes to Irish Women's Football. The wren is not held captive,
The bugger's dead.
In the old days, the Wren celebrants would go into the hills above the town and kill a wren with a cudgel and collect money to bury the wren...
Mrs. (fill in the blank... ) is a very nice woman
She's given us tuppence to bury the Wren
In the old old days, it was one of the human inhabitants of the town who was killed in midwinter in order to insure the coming of spring, wrens were more expendable in the Christian times.
There are a number of ingredients for a proper Wren.
1. Straw boys. Dressed in skirts, capes and conical hats of woven barley, looking like a pointed haycock, they do most of the best dancing..
2. The King and Queen of the wren
3. The oncha and amidaun (excuse the spelling os Gaelige agus os Berla - gorra leshcail). The bitchy woman and the foolish man. 4. Most important the Hobby Horse, a fellow dressed in a horse costume with flapping lips on the head, who has a sharp sense of humor and can disguise his voice. His job is to insult everyone, so they are better neighbors during the year, and cough up lots of gelt to bury the wren.
On an early DeDannan album they play two wren tunes on fifes, which are associated with the Green and Gold wren in Dingle. There is also a book I ve seen, hard to find I bet, which gives great detail about the Green and Gold Wren. It was published in the seventies, I believe, and may be called the Green and the Gold.
Happy Saint Stevens to all, and good luck on the Wren
Larry Otway