Blackberry Picking

Bramble grows in every hedgerow in Ireland and the fruit ripens from late August into early October, which makes blackberry picking the one foraging habit that never lapsed - children are sent out with containers, and the result becomes jam, crumbles and pies. Seamus Heaney's poem Blackberry-Picking, about gathering them and watching them rot, is one of the most widely taught poems in Irish schools, which gives the practice an odd literary weight. Folk tradition holds that blackberries must not be picked after Halloween, because the puca spits on or fouls them at Samhain and they become unfit - a belief recorded across the country in the Schools Collection, and with an observable basis, since by November the fruit is genuinely spoiling with mould and insect damage in the damp. Pick from lanes and public roadsides rather than farmland without asking, and avoid hedges beside busy roads or recently sprayed fields.

What you actually see

• The hedgerow fruit - bramble in every lane and boreen, ripening from late August.
• The Halloween rule - the puca tradition, and the practical reason behind it.
• The Heaney poem - the schoolroom text attached to the practice.
• The uses - jam, crumble and pies, made the same day.

When to go

Late August to early October, with the best fruit in September. After Halloween the fruit is genuinely spoiling, whatever the reason given.

Honest expectations

Avoid hedges beside busy roads and any field that may have been sprayed. Farmland needs the owner's permission; public lanes do not. Brambles scratch and the lower fruit is worth leaving. Only pick what you can identify.

Nearby

Every rural lane in the country; the Schools Collection at duchas.ie records the folklore.