August 22, 1922 - Michael Collins is assassinated.
On the last day of his life, he set out from Cork in a
convoy that passed through Bandon, Clonakilty, and
Rosscarbery on its way to Skibbereen. He stopped at
Woodfield, and there in the Four Walls, the pub situated
across the road from the house where his mother had
been born, he stood his family and escort to the local
brew - Clonakilty Wrastler. On the return trip they again
passed through Bandon. Michael Collins had only twenty
minutes more to live. Around eight o'clock, his convoy was ambushed at a place known as Beal na mBlįth - the mouth of flowers. Only one man was killed--Michael Collins. It is thought that Irregulars did the shooting, but some say that it might have been his own men. To this day, there is controversy about what actually happened.  R.I.P.

 

AUGUST 1 | LUGHNASA

The ancient Celts, who were more closely attuned to the natural year than we are, celebrated four annual festivals. These festivals fell at times we now think of as February 1, May1, August 1, and November 1. Each festival launched a  new phase  of  the agricultural year.  Having  celebrated  the beginning of the growing season around May 1, they were ready to celebrate the beginning of the harvest by August 1.

They called their early August festival Lughnasa in honor  of  a  god named  Lugh. Lughnasa rituals involved a hilltop gathering of the whole community and a feast centered on the newly ripened crop. The hilltop had to do with looking down on the landscape that provided the community with its food, and the main food at the original Lughnasa feasts was the local grain.