To The Raking of the Fire
And the New Flame in the Morning ~

So goes the dedication in H. V. Morton's In Search of Ireland.

"There is a verse spoken by peasants in the west as they rake the embers of their turf fires before going to bed.  It has been Englished as follows:
I save the seed of the fire to-night,
And so may Christ save me . . ."
The farmer rakes his fire after a long evening in a Connemara cabin.  He tidies the little pile of glowing turf, and then he damps it down with ashes in order that the fire might live until the morning.
"This act, which is performed in thousands of white cabins when night comes over the hills is symbolic of Ireland.  The burning peat, one may fancy, is the Gael; the ashes are the centuries of suppression under a foreign power; the darkness needs no comment, and the morning is the Ireland of the future..  When these ashes are raked off in the morning there is a faint pinkish heart of fire in the turf, and the peasants blow upon it until a flame bursts out and new fuel is added on the hearth."

Happy Saint Patrick's Day