Wren Day (Lá an Dreoilín)

1731

Recurring Irish and Manx custom on 26 December in which 'Wrenboys' in straw masks and motley go door to door with a decorated wren bush, singing and collecting donations said to bring prosperity. The earliest dated attestation is George Waldron's 1731 record that the wren was buried 'with a whimsical kind of solemnity, singing dirges over her in the Manx language'. A stuffed wren now replaces the real bird.