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Maypoles on the 'Road to Richhill' and Beyond

Abstract This article results from the discovery of an early eighteenth-century estate map from County Armagh on which a maypole is drawn, the first ever noted in that county. The map illustration is described and discussed in relation to the few other historic descriptions of Irish maypoles, and also compared with some in England. Drawing together a variety of sources ranging from 1625 to the present, some unpublished, the activities associated with maypoles are considered. The term in the Irish language for maypole, and use of the word maypole in proverbial expressions, are alluded to. The distribution of maypoles in Ireland and the relationship between maypoles and maybushes both public and private is discussed. Evidence for the maybough drawn from beyond its already established area of distribution in south-west Ireland is provided, and for the use of rowan at Maytime in Ireland and Scotland. Reference is made to the current activity at the one remaining maypole in Ireland, which is also the one for which we have the earliest evidence because it, too, is on a map. The article seeks to highlight the value of estate maps, the Ordnance Survey Memoirs (now all published, and referred to below as Memoirs) and 'The Belfast Newsletter' Index 1737–1800 for the study of folk life.