The most popular musical instrument for the Wrenday is?
Frying _Pan
Tamborine
Uke
Tinwhistle
Accordion
Harmonica
0voters
Every Christmas in Ireland just after Santa day is Wrenday or as they say over there -Randay-.
Little kids, and sometimes adults, dress up in ragged costumes going about playing music outside of neighbors doors. If the people in the house like the music they open the door, if they like it a lot they invite the merry band inside.
Later when some tunes are played and the audience entertained, cake tea and other things are given the ‘Ranboys’
In towns and cities the practice often extends to adults, and not so adult , Ranboys performing in Pubs.
Oddly it wasn’t!, though today it is common enough, but also you have to take into account several hundred years of previous tradition.
A similar practice is ‘WasHael’ ..ing in the southwest of England, Hogmany Scotland, and OC Mummering all over the British Isles. Come to think of it, if the Bodhran was that widely used and ancient, then why is it not already assimilated into the other traditions of the British Isles? , as happened the Harmonica, Concertina and Accordion.
The legend says that it was a drum of some form that a wren started to peck upon and woke the town guards (presumably English guards) which the rest of the townspeople were plotting to do away with. If the bird hadn’t started pecking on the head of the drum, they could have snuck up perfectly well and dispatched the unfortunate Englishmen. However, given the wren’s ‘warning’ the guards awoke and saved their necks.
Hence the wren has been called the ‘devil bird’ for spoiling the well intentioned Irish townsfolk and their murderous plot. At least, that’s how the local Irish priest tells it around these parts.
That was also my understanding, from my secondary-school Irish teacher (born co. Kerry ca. 1900). When John B Keane’s play “Sive” launched the bodhran on an unsuspecting public in the mid-1960s, this teacher explained to us that it was an instrument used on St Stephen’s day by the wren boys (and implicitly that these were the only circumstances in which it was used).
Roger it is today what it always was. Anything that sounded musical is used and today they even use those cheapo battery powered keybords. I can recall people playing rock and roll as well as Irish tunes, on Accordions.
But most of the time there used be a few TWs and these seemed to outnumber the rest by a large ammount, probably on account of far lower price when compared with the other instruments.
At least, that’s how the local Irish priest tells it around these parts.
