Fenor 1996 – Diary of a Parish Community

“Ash Wednesday”

19th February, 1996

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. In our grandparents’ time it was the beginning of forty days of black fast and abstinence. All over seven years of age and under seventy were obliged to fast and abstain from animal products (milk, butter, meat and eggs). Fish was allowed. Two collations (small meals of black tea and dry bread or porridge and black tea) were allowed each day and for the main meal, potatoes and salt or potatoes and fish with a white sauce were the usual fare. Because milk or buttermilk was prohibited, a barm was made by adding oatmeal to water and allowing it to stand for a day or two. This produced a whitish drink which was also used to whiten the tea.

For people who lived near the strand there was a supply of fish or shell fish. Salt ling or Landers fish (Newfoundlander fish) was bought by the slab. It was dried and salted and was as hard as a board. It had to be soaked overnight before cooking and then boiled with onions. It was very salty. Dances were prohibited during the forty days of Lent, as were card games and all sorts of frivolity. Smoking and alcohol were usually given up for Lent by the men and sweets and sugar by the ladies. By the end of World War II, the black fast was not as rigid as it had been. Milk and eggs were allowed, abstinence from meat was obligatory only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and children were not obliged to fast.

The one island in this sea of deprivation was St. Patrick’s Day when the fast was suspended and everyone could eat and have their fill. Was it any wonder that people indulged above and beyond the normal on that day?

On Ash Wednesday this year [1996], ashes were blessed and distributed as usual in Fenor Church. The ashes which were used were got from the burning of the blessed palms left over after Palm Sunday the previous year.

[ In many diocese in Ireland it was stipulated that a collation should comprise tea and a biscuit. In the 1950s, bakers in Cork produced giant-sized biscuits to get around this rule. The biscuits were affectionately known as Connie Dodgers after Cornelius Lucey, the bishop of Cork and Ross at the time, who was legendary for his austere interpretations of Catholic teaching.
And do you remember the catechism question about days of abstinence? We were to abstain from meat or soups made from meat on Fridays (unless one fell on a holy day of obligation), the Wednesdays of Lent (unless one fell on a Friday), the Four Vigils (unless one fell on a Sunday) and the Ember Days. And the next question was? – Comms Team.]