Culture

Hurray! It’s time to wake up and smell the crocus

In a word: Crocus, many specimens of which should be visible around you now, at last

Now there's a sight to put a spring in your step. PhotographL iStock

Patsy McGarry's face
Patsy McGarry
Sat Feb 3 2024 - 00:30

Psst!......Psst!......For God’s sake, pssst!! Wake up. Yes, YOU. Pull that duvet from over your head. Remove the blindfold and those earplugs. It’s over! January is gone, ended three days ago. Done. Won’t bother us again for 11 months, ELEVEN months.

Am I sure? Of course I am sure; it’s February 3rd.

What birds? Oh. You sent out a raven and then a dove to see if January was gone. Really? And the raven did not return. Really? The dove did? The dove did. But when you sent it out again it came back with a sprig of holly in its beak, convincing you the Christmas decorations were still up. So, it was still January.

Then I know people who still have their Christmas decorations up on St Patrick’s Day, and January does not extend to March 17th even if it can seem like that. Hmmm ...

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You sent out the dove again? And this time it came back with a load of bills in its beak. Well, could there be further poof that the end of January was nigh? That was last week. Proof then that January has passed.

No, I’m not afraid to use the word dead. January isn’t dead. Animate things die. We die. January is time, it passes. Like a sentence. A jail sentence, that is, not a succession of words like this. January is over, done, finito, caput, gone.

Get up, Spring has sprung, the crocuses are out, and it’s a bank holiday weekend – the first of the year. You forgot! Yes, since last year the first Monday in February is now a public/bank holiday in Ireland, to mark St Brigid’s Day.

I know. St Brigid’s Day was last Thursday, but whoever heard of a bank/public holiday on a Thursday? That’d be just mad. What sane country would have a public holiday on a Thursday?

The Americans? Ah, the Americans! Yes, they have a public holiday on the fourth Thursday of every November to mark Thanksgiving ... but, as I was saying ...

And, no, I don’t see it a problem calling it after St Brigid in an increasingly secular Ireland. It is also a celebration of the old Celtic festival Imbolc, marking the beginning of Spring.

So, up with you, and celebrate that we never died a winter yet.

Crocus from Latin crocus, Greek krokos.

inaword@irishtimes.com