Wren boys make merry in Sandymount

People gathered once again in the Dublin suburb of Sandymount yesterday to watch more than 40 wren boys parading around the village green, reading poetry and singing bawdy songs from the back of a lorry.

The origin of the old, mostly rural, tradition of killing the wren - pronounced wran - is uncertain, but it appears to have survived particularly well in Kerry.

Almost 20 years ago a group of local people, including former Labour leader Ruairí Quinn, got together to see if they could revive the tradition in a Dublin 4 setting. Tradition holds that the wren - whose twitching in a holly bush is blamed for revealing the hiding place of St Stephen, who was subsequently martyred - should be hunted and killed, tied to a holly bush and paraded through the streets amid much merry-making.

Yesterday however there was no killing as the decidedly human-looking wrens in splendid colourful coats and face masks, set about entertaining a crowd of several hundred.

Even the gardaí on duty were laughing as the day's grand marshall Mick O'Brien exhorted them to join in a chorus of Take Her Up To Monto.

Brendan Lawlor of the Knights of Malta explained donations would be going towards their maternity hospital in Bethlehem, which caters for Christians and Muslims.

Organising committee members Pat McEvoy and Tom Ahern both wore elaborate wren masks and colourful clothes as they chatted by the stage, pointing out well-known faces in the crowd. These included Eamon Ryan TD of the Green Party, whose father Bob had been one of the original instigators of the wren boys revival.

As the band Dreoilin made way for the Swords Mummers - from Swords we were assured - and the Ned Ryan dancers prepared for their turn, crowds stood around the green and outside local pubs joining in the general merriment. Young men with pints of beer smiled good-naturedly as locals walking their dogs made their way through the throng.

As the day wore on musicians from far and wide arrived playing bodhrans, bagpipes, tin whistles and even combs.

"It is a bit of fun," explained Mr McEvoy. "It is a tradition which we didn't really know would transfer to an urban environment. They would have killed a wren in Kerry once but we don't do that," he added hastily.