It’s nearly Christmas and there are still blackberries on the brambles

An alternative superstition puts the date earlier than that, warning that the brambles should be left well enough alone after Michaelmas – the feast of the three archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, which falls on September 29.

This year it is nearly the Feast of St. Nicholas, however, and, incredibly, there are still fruit on some brambles around the highways and byways of the north west.

The ‘Journal’ has spotted blackberries in hedgerows at Killea and Braehead as late as Saturday, December 3, and on the slopes of Benbradagh, on November 19.

Catherine Keena, Teagasc Countryside Management Specialist, writing a month ago, encouraged people to look out for the last of the blackberries.

"While coming to the end of a long season of blackberries, it is still possible to see blossoms and green, red and black fruit at different stages of ripeness on the same arching briar.

"According to folklore blackberries shouldn’t be eaten after Hallowe’en when the púca spits on them. The saying 'ní fiú sméar san fhomhair é' (it’s not worth an autumn blackberry) refers to later blackberries,” she stated.

Is it something to do with the weather? While Derry and Donegal are this week braced for the first real cold snap of the 2022/23 winter, meteorologists have reported that Ireland is getting warmer and wetter, which may be facilitating the late fruiting of the brambles.

According to Met Éireann: “Autumn 2022 continued the run of warmer than average seasons, being the sixth consecutive season where every synoptic station recorded above average mean temperatures.

"It was also very wet, with a number of locations having their wettest autumn on record. Troughs of low pressure to the west and southwest of Ireland dominated the weather during most of autumn.

"This was particularly the case for the first week of September, the second half of October and most of November. During these periods, rainfall amounts were well above average, focused in the East during September, widespread during October and in the Southwest during November.”

Fairies, banshees, ghosts and superstitions - a look back at the old customs of Hallowe'en