On Bank Holiday Monday, 4 May 2026, our own Professor Frank Shovlin spoke on the subject of ‘Bealtaine’ at the Liverpool Irish Centre as part of their celebration of An Tóstal festival.
Bealtaine is the modern gaelic word for the month of May. An ancient fertility festival associated with the lighting of bonfires, Bealtaine marked the beginning of summer, and was when cattle were driven out to the summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect cattle, people and crops, and to encourage growth. Special bonfires were kindled, whose flames, smoke and ashes were believed to have protective powers. The people and their cattle would walk around or between bonfires and sometimes leap over the flames or embers. All household fires would be doused and then relit from the Beltane bonfire. It is one of the four main Gaelic seasonal festivals—along with Samhain, Imbolc, and Lúnasa.
In parts of Ireland, people made a May Bush: typically a thorn bush or branch decorated with flowers, ribbons, bright shells and rushlights. Holy wells were also visited, while Beltaine dew, gathered at dawn on 1 May, was thought to bring beauty and maintain youthfulness. Many of these customs were part of May Day or Midsummer festivals in parts of Great Britain and mainland Europe, such as Germanic celebrations of Walpurgisnacht, the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess, and is celebrated on the night of 30 April and the day of 1 May.
In Britain, thousands of revellers take to the streets of Oxford annually to welcome the coming of spring, as part of the city's annual May Morning celebrations. The May Day tradition dates back more than 500 years, and sees crowds of early risers line Magdalen Bridge and the city's High Street around Magdalen Tower. From atop the tower, the Magdalen College Choir fill the air with their rendition of the Latin composition Hymnus Eucharisticus shortly after the bells chime at 6 am.
In Ireland, public celebrations of Beltaine fell out of popularity by the 20th century, though some customs have been revived as local cultural events. Since the late 20th century, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans have observed a festival based on Beltaine as a religious holiday. The chief example of this trend in contemporary Ireland is the lighting of a fire at the Hill of Uisneach in County Westmeath. The Hill is an ancient ceremonial site containing a series of monuments nestled into the townland of Rathconrath in County Westmeath. It is known as the mythological and sacred centre of Ireland and the site of the great Bealtaine fire. One of six Irish royal sites, the Hill of Uisneach is currently on the list for UNESCO World Heritage Site status. In 2017, the ceremonial fire was lit by the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins; making him the first Irish Head of State to do so since the last High King, nearly a thousand years ago. Manchán Magan, that great advocate of the Irish language who died last October aged just 55, had his ashes scattered a month later on the Hill of Uisneach among a crowd of 2,500 mourners.
Beltaine (1899-1900) was a magazine founded by the Irish Literary Theatre, the forerunner of the modern Abbey Theatre, which sought to create a new nationalist theatre and often featured essays by Yeats, Lady Gregory, and George Moore. It was later succeeded by other journals like Samhain, which continued to document the Irish Literary Theatre's work. Yeats's work with Beltaine was central to his goal of connecting Irish literature with its pagan and peasant roots, bridging the gap between national movement politics and artistic expression.
As with the adoption of Imbolc into Saint Brigid’s Day, Bealtaine was subsumed into Catholic Church practices in Ireland with May becoming the month of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The month was celebrated with the construction of May altars on which stood a statue of the Virgin surrounded by flower-filled vases.