Ireland & USA Little Differences #23: Spring into Summer
Speaking of differences and similarities between Ireland and the US, it’s time for talk of seasons.
Brother the younger is long a fan of how the seasons are in Ireland. And how are they? Grand thanks.
Spring in Ireland starts on St Brigid’s Day. That would be Ireland’s patron saint who is not named Patrick. It’s a day that you would probably end up calling St Britty’s Day in the US.
Anyway, Imbolc, to give St Brigid’s Day its non-religious name, is on February 1st. As it happens it is frequently freezing then, and February is the one month in Ireland that scares me when it comes to weather. Consequently I always advise tourists to travel to Ireland in February.
Much as I’ve always struggled with spring in Ireland beginning on the first day of frequently freezing February, I’ve struggled even more with the first day of spring here in the US being on the Vernal Equinox (March 20th or 21st - competing with Hoffenpurpenburger Day).
The seasons in Ireland you see are:
spring - Feb, Mar, Apr
summer- May, Jun, Jul
autumn - Aug, Sep, Oct
winter - Nov, Dec, Jan
Yes really. And to quote Brother the Younger (alas can’t link as he has a closed shop these days):
Lúnasa is what we’d normally call August, named as it is after the feast of our old Sun God - you may have seen Dancing at Lughnasa in the theatre or if you’ve been less fortunate on the screen at some point, which makes much of old pagan traditions surviving in Irish backwaters in the first half of the last century, specifically with mad folk from Donegal driving cattle through fires to purify them. Now look at the next two months. ‘Meán Fómhair’ and ‘Deireadh Fómhair’ mean, quite literally, the middle and the end of Autumn. So the Irish Autumn is August, September, and October.
And so in Northern Hemispherical circles (if you know what I mean), Ireland has one of the earliest starts to any season. You can argue with this but it does mean that the Summer Solstice in Ireland (June 20th or 21st) makes a lot of sense being called Midsummer’s day - because it’s awfully close to mid-summer.
And that’s what I struggle with the most, the idea that both summer and winter in the US don’t start until the June and December Solstices respectively, when both seasons seem to be well under way at that point.
Yes I know these are astronomical seasons and that the meteorological seasons begin at the first of the month in which the relevant equinox or solstice falls, but that’s still a whole month out from Ireland’s seasonal starts, and every one I meet here talks about spring beginning and summer beginning on the 21st of March and June respectively.
Anyway, seasons greeting to you this midsummer season, I mean beginning of the season of summer.
Note: Conortje, the netherlands-based Irish ex-pat is also talking about this today, but I was planning to for ages; it was on my calendar.
See Other Little Differences:
• Temperatures
• Midnight on New Year’s Eve
• I’m Reminded of the British Police by Valentine’s Day in the USA
• Audience Reactions to an Irish Movie
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