From September to October 2022 I recorded 14 Harvest Thanksgivings throughout West Cork. Over 140 photographs were deposited with the National Folklore Collection in UCD. Previous to this there was very little visual archival material relating to this unique Protestant Custom. This project was supported by the Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary Award 2022.
Harvest Thanksgiving is a relatively recent addition to the liturgy of the Church of Ireland (and
some other Protestant faiths). In 1843, a Reverend Robert Hawker of Cornwall devised the
Anglican ritual, which spread from there across the English-speaking world.
While firmly rooted in the Anglican faith, Harvest Thanksgiving rites and rituals, in a more
general sense, have a long history outside the Christian faith, dating to long before the Christian
era, and present in a wide variety of cultures and faith traditions around the world, in which
people come together to give thanks to their god or gods for the harvest and to pray for a good
outcome in the agricultural year to come. In Irish tradition, pre- or non-Christian harvest rites
that are echoed in the symbology of the Anglican Harvest Thanksgiving include the Cailleach or
corn dolly, with similar traditions in the United Kingdom and across northern Europe. To this
day, some Church of Ireland parishes integrate in their communion rites a loaf of bread made in
the form of a sheaf of wheat, with clear parallels to the ancient rites of harvest that pre-date
European Christianity.
Except from Commissioned text
Dr Deirdre Nuttall 2023, writer, researcher and ethnologist
Harvest Thanksgiving is a relatively recent addition to the liturgy of the Church of Ireland (and
some other Protestant faiths). In 1843, a Reverend Robert Hawker of Cornwall devised the
Anglican ritual, which spread from there across the English-speaking world.
While firmly rooted in the Anglican faith, Harvest Thanksgiving rites and rituals, in a more
general sense, have a long history outside the Christian faith, dating to long before the Christian
era, and present in a wide variety of cultures and faith traditions around the world, in which
people come together to give thanks to their god or gods for the harvest and to pray for a good
outcome in the agricultural year to come. In Irish tradition, pre- or non-Christian harvest rites
that are echoed in the symbology of the Anglican Harvest Thanksgiving include the Cailleach or
corn dolly, with similar traditions in the United Kingdom and across northern Europe. To this
day, some Church of Ireland parishes integrate in their communion rites a loaf of bread made in
the form of a sheaf of wheat, with clear parallels to the ancient rites of harvest that pre-date
European Christianity.
Except from Commissioned text
Dr Deirdre Nuttall 2023, writer, researcher and ethnologist