At Kilrush in the county of Clare, this is the greatest day in the year for weddings, and consequently the Roman Catholic priests are generally occupied in the celebration of matrimony from sunrise till midnight. The general fee on this occasion is two guineas and a half; and many thoughtless couples, under the age of sixteen, pay it with cheerfulness when they have not another penny in their possession. Those who do not marry on this day must wait until Easter Monday on account of the intervening Lent.--Mason, _Stat. Acc. of Ireland_, 1814, vol. ii. p. 458. FEB. 4.] ASH WEDNESDAY. Among the Anglo-Saxons Ash Wednesday had its ceremonial of strewing ashes upon not merely the public penitent, but all; and thereby spoke its awful teachings and warnings unto all--unto the young and old--the guiltless and the guilty. As soon as none-song was over, that is, about mid-afternoon, the ashes were hallowed and then put upon each one’s forehead. From their own parish church the people then went in procession to some other church, and on coming back heard mass. Then, and only then, did such as were bound and able to fast take any kind of food.--D. Rock, _The Church of our Fathers_, 1849-53, vol. iii. part ii. p. 63. Formerly, on this day, boys used to go about _clacking_ at doors, to get eggs or bits of bacon wherewith to make up a feast among themselves; and, when refused, would stop the keyhole up with dirt, and depart with a rhymed denunciation.--_Book of Days_, vol. i. p. 240. We learn also from Fosbroke’s _British Monachism_ (1843) that in days gone by boys used on the evening of Ash Wednesday to run about with firebrands and torches. In former times during the season of Lent, an officer denominated “The King’s Cock-Crower” crowed the hour every night within the precincts of the palace, instead of proclaiming it in the ordinary manner. On the first Ash Wednesday after the accession of the House of Hanover, as the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., was sitting down to supper, this officer suddenly entered the apartment, before the chaplain said grace, and crowed “past ten o’clock.” The astonished Prince, not understanding English, and mistaking the tremulation of the crow for mockery, concluded that this ceremony was intended as an insult, and instantly rose to resent it; when, with some difficulty, he was made to understand the nature of the custom, and that it was intended as a compliment, and according to court etiquette. From that period the custom was discontinued.