Dancing for the cake in Westmeath

Sir Henry Piers wrote in 1682 that in most parishes of Westmeath, on the patron day and at Easter and Whitsuntide, the country people met in the afternoon on a convenient spot near the alehouse to dance for the cake, with a piper always in attendance. The alewife provided the cake, which was set on a round board on top of a pike about ten feet high, with a garland rising from it tied with meadow flowers, or with apples on pegs later in the summer. The dancers, in couples, all began together in a great ring round the bush, as the garland was called, and whoever held out longest won the cake and apples, after which the alewife’s trade went on.