Pattern of Urlaur - The Pattern

The Pattern

Patterns were a traditional feature of rural Ireland, held to honour patron saints; "Pattern" being a corruption of "patron".

The Pattern of Urlaur is held near the ruins of Urlaur Abbey. The Abbey was founded around 1430 by the Anglo-Norman Nangle family for the Dominicans, and was dedicated to St. Thomas Aquinas. It was built overlooking the banks of Loch Urlaur, but was destroyed in 1654 by Cromwellian soldiers.

Each year on August 4th, the traditional Feast Day of St Dominic, the people of the area gather to celebrate Mass in the "Abbey". The annual 'Pattern Day' starts with a concelebrated Mass in the Abbey, followed by music, sports, novelty events etc.

At the Pattern, traditional food items can be purchased, like dilisk (duileasc), a seaweed.

Douglas Hyde's 1915 collection of Legends of Saints and Sinners contains a tale called "the Friars of Urlaur" that describes the difficulty they had with an evil spirit, disguised as a black boar, that dwelt in the Loch Urlaur.

Read more about this topic:  Pattern Of Urlaur

Famous quotes containing the word pattern:

    Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.
    Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)

    Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong women the man, many years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order.
    Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)