Harbingers of Spring Snowdrops in the snow.
(Image Wikimedia Commons)

At this time of year a very common greeting in rural parts of Ireland  is ‘There’s a grand stretch in the evenings, thank God‘. Not that winter is over by any means as February and March can be wicked months weather-wise, with snow, ice, fierce winds and rain. We are still perished with the cold and fires still blaze in hearths,but the nights are getting shorter and we are enjoying about 8 hours 45 minutes of daylight, with an extra three minutes or so added each day between now and June.  Lambs are being born, snowdrops are pushing up through the snow. Hardly surprising then that our Celtic forebears marked this time as the beginning of Spring with  one of their great fire festivals, Imbolg or Imbolc – the others being Samhain, marking the beginning of the year…