Celtic Calendar - Medieval Irish and Welsh Calendars

Medieval Irish and Welsh Calendars

Further information: Gaelic calendar Further information: Welsh holidays

Among the Insular Celts, the year was divided into a light half and a dark half. As the day was seen as beginning after sunset, so the year was seen as beginning with the arrival of the darkness, at Samhain (in modern times the 1 November, or for modern Pagans in early November). The light half of the year started at Bealtaine (in modern times 1 May, or for modern Pagans in early May). This observance of festivals beginning the evening before the festival day is still seen in the celebrations and folkloric practices among the Gaels, such as the traditions of Oíche Shamhna (Samhain Eve) among the Irish and Oidhche Shamhna among the Scots.

Julius Caesar said in his Gallic Wars: " keep birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night." Although Caesar says "at night" he specifically does not say "sunset" so we do not know how much the Gauls differed from others in methods of counting from midnight. Longer periods were reckoned in nights, as in the surviving term "fortnight" and the obsolete "se'nnight".