Morvah Fair was once attended by hundreds of people from all over west Cornwall. The event was extremely unpopular with the local churches because of the bad behaviour of the people attending it. At one time, they even stole the benches inside the church to sit on.
The fair was associated with a Cornish legend about a man called “Jack the Tinkard”. Jack had many adventures, including defeating a giant who lived on the nearby hills. The stories of Jack the Tinkard were turned into a play, which people sometimes performed during the celebrations.
Morvah Fair is very close in date to a feast day called Lammas, which in Ireland is called Lughnasadh. Morvah’s event used to be so popular that at one point it was described as the “largest Lughnasadh celebration outside Ireland”.
