The night before Christmas in Ireland (Advent Calendar: Christmas Eve)

Breaking the fast, watching for angels standing on the spike of every holly leaf, and being sure to say your prayers - because every Irish child knows that all prayers said on Christmas Eve are answered...

These are some of the memories of childhood Christmases in Ireland shared by Brigit Haggerty in her essay An Irish Christmas—The Night Before. Perhaps my favorite part of her descriptive remembrances is this recollection and realization:

Drifting off to sleep, I can vaguely recall hushed voices in the other room, bits and pieces of Handel's Messiah, and a feeling of pure contentment. It would take me years and years to recognize and realize that these are the gifts that go on giving.

For another look at Christmas Eve in Ireland, this time a humorous one, see the book An Irish Night Before Christmas, written by Sarah Kirwan Blazek and illustrated by James Rice. Nevermind the yule log on the fire and glasses of eggnog, here you'll find the turf blazing in the fireplace and glasses of Irish stout. This charming children's picture book will bring a smile to the face of children of all ages at Christmas.

Here's wishing you a warm candle in your window and an Irish blessing this Christmas Eve:

The light of the Christmas star to you
The warmth of home and hearth to you
The cheer and good will of friends to you
The hope of a childlike heart to you
The joy of a thousand angels to you
The love of the Son and God's peace to you.

Nollaig Shona dhíbh!

Image courtesy Tipperary of Tara, Ltd.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 24: Christmas Eve. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at A light that shines again and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

On French Hens, a Partridge and God Himself (Advent Calendar: Christmas Music)

In the spirit of the true meaning of Christmas, I was planning to write a post about the well-loved carol The Twelve Days of Christmas. I had learned several years ago that the objects throughout the carol had hidden meanings - they represented various aspects of the Christian faith. I understood that the carol had been written for use by persecuted English and Irish Catholics during the time of England's Protestant reformation. Or so I thought...

After a little bit of research on the subject (much thanks to Douglas Anderson's Hymns & Carols of Christmas website) I have learned enough about The Twelve Days of Christmas to write a book, never mind a blog post. And, no, the background of the carol may not be exactly what I had thought. But it does have a fascinating history steeped in the joy and merriment of the Christmas season which traveled through several countries before becoming an international phenomenon.

The song probably had its origin as a French carol and was sung as a sort of "chanson de geste" by the medieval troubadours of France, according to The Folk Carol of England by Douglas Brice.

Elizabeth Poston writes in The Second Penguin Book of Christmas Carols that the earliest written version of the song appears in "Twelth Day", a 13th-century manuscript located at Trinity College, Cambridge. The Twelve Days of Christmas was first published in a children's book called Mirth & Mischief in 1780, with its first appearance in a collection of Christmas songs coming in 1868.

Just to clarify, the "twelve days of Christmas" refers to the period of celebration between Christmas day itself and Epiphany on January 6. The song was originally sung by the French on Epiphany, otherwise known as Twelth Night.

In its more recent history, The Twelve Days of Christmas song has become a favorite throughout the traditional Christmas season and now our modern extended secular Christmas season which gets rolling in late November (and perhaps even earlier) in some places.

As for the meaning behind the symbols, here is the story as best I could find it. It turns out that a Catholic priest by the name of Fr. Hal Stockert had done some research for a project years back. In the process he came across some letters from Irish Jesuit priests to the motherhouse in Rheims, France. According to Fr. Stockert's memory (he hasn't been able to relocate the letters) some of the documents had mentions of the symbolism of The Twelve Days of Christmas being used as a secret catechism for persecuted Catholics at the time. Fr. Stockert posted his findings online not "as a doctoral thesis", as he put it, but "simply as some delicious tidbit [he] thought the world would be delighted to share over a holiday season". (See more about his story at Catholic Culture or Catholic Information Network. For another interesting discussion on the topic and a list of the symbols, see this CRI/Voice webpage.)

So it turns out that the carol, not necessarily written as a tool of faith, may have actually been used that way. Whether or not this was the case, thanks to this song we now have an interesting and memorable way to remember various aspects of faith.

Here are the symbols, according to the Catholic Culture webpage:

• true love = God Himself
• partridge in a pear tree = Jesus Christ
• 2 turtle doves = Old and New Testaments
• 3 French hens = faith, hope and charity (the theological virtues)
• 4 calling birds = the four Gospels and/or the four evangelists
• 5 golden rings = the first five books of the Old Testament (Pentateuch)
• 6 geese a-laying = the six days of creation
• 7 swans a-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and/or the seven sacraments
• 8 maids a-milking = the eight beatitudes
• 9 ladies dancing = the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit
• 10 lords a-leaping = the ten commandments
• 11 pipers piping = the eleven faithful apostles
• 12 drummers drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

Click here for the tune for The Twelve Days of Christmas along with lyrics in English and Irish Gaelic.

As the twelve days of Christmas draw near, I hope you'll take the time to read the story of the "Partridge's" birth written by one of the "four calling birds" in one of the "turtle doves". Make sure you obey the "ten lords a leaping", and I wish you a holiday season filled with "French hens!"

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 21: Christmas Music. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at A light that shines again and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

"Mass-going feet" and "a frosty dawn" (Advent Calendar: Religious Services)

Every child has strong memories of Christmas mornings. The joy of the long-awaited day's arrival; the gift-giving; the beauty of the morning shared with family. Many Irish children in days gone by remembered the outdoor beauty of the morning of Christ's birth as they made their way to early morning Mass with their families.

Patrick Kavanagh, a well-loved Irish poet of recent times, has written a beautiful poem which brings to life his memories of those Christmas mornings. Here is a portion of his poem, A Christmas Childhood. Kavanagh's vivid description of the morning preparations and the family's walk to church on "Mass-going feet" can't help but make the reader sentimental for Christmases past.

...Outside the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking;
The light of her stable-lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn...

You can read the full text of Kavanagh's A Christmas Childhood at this Irish Culture & Customs webpage.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 17: Grab Bag. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at A light that shines again and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

"A fairyland of gold and glitter to feast the eyes of a country child" (Advent Calendar: Grab Bag)

Christmas 1858 must have been a time of joy and sadness for Patrick Tierney. Just eighteen years old, I'm sure that memories of childhood Christmases in Ireland were fresh on his mind as he celebrated the season with the hope of a new young immigrant to America.

Wondering what his memories of Ireland might have been like, I was happy to find an account written in the 1920's by Consiglio Murphy. She wrote her memories of Christmas in East Cork "sixty years ago" - which would have been around the 1860's, a few short years after Patrick Tierney had arrived in America from the neighboring County Tipperary.

I enjoyed reading her memories about the pre-Christmas plum pudding process, and how each family member was required to stir the pudding to prevent a death in the family in the new year.

Visits with gifts of fresh milk to neighbors "with many children" ended up with she and her siblings returning filled with rich cake or plum pudding and a chide from their mother, "You took more from those poor people than you gave."

She also tells about her memories of riding into town with her parents in the "pony and trap" to "bring home the Christmas". On the way back in the dark of the Irish late winter afternoon, she remembers enjoying the sights of the lit gas lamps, "a fairyland of gold and glitter to feast the eyes of a country child, who only had an oil lamp and candles at home."

I can't help but wonder what young Patrick Tierney, a country child from Tipperary, feasted his eyes on during his first Christmas in Boston in 1858.

You can read the rest of Consiglio Murphy's memories of mid-19th-century East Cork Christmas at this Irish Culture & Customs webpage or in the book No Shoes in Summer by Merlin Press.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 17: Grab Bag. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at A light that shines again and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Get in the Christmas spirit - do your housecleaning! (Advent Calendar: Grab Bag)

The Irish have only a few Christmas traditions that stand out as traditionally Irish and not borrowed from other cultures in recent times. Perhaps the oldest of these traditions is - housecleaning! And it may, too, have been borrowed from other cultures - although it was as long ago as before the birth of Christ.

This is not your typical housecleaning. Traditional Irish "whitewashing the house" for Christmas involves cleaning and polishing the house and everything in it. As this Christmas Archives webpage puts it, "The cleaning of the house from top to bottom...Every window and glass sparking, all the silver polished till it shone." Take a drive through the Irish countryside in December and you may see a farmhouse that has the freshly whitewashed look.

Supposedly the "holiday cleansing" tradition originated in the purification ceremonies of ancient cultures, including the Mesopotamians circa 4000 B.C. It has long been a part of the preparations in Ireland (and some other European countries) for Christmas day, and can still be found in many rural areas today.

So get yourself in the Christmas spirit - go do some housecleaning! Whitewash your outhouse (if you have one); clean out the stables (if you're lucky enough to own livestock). If not, put up some fresh curtains and put out some new table linens. If you want to have a traditional Irish Christimas, it's time to purify and freshen up your home for Christmas in honor of the coming of the Christ Child.

Better get to work!

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 9: Grab Bag. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at A light that shines again and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

Deck the halls with boughs of cuileann (Advent Calendar: Outdoor Decorations)

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Fa-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la..."

This beloved carol, believed to be originally of Welsh origin, had already been around for quite awhile when Mozart used it for a piano duet in the 18th century. You can read more about its interesting history in William Studwell's A Christmas Carol Reader.

Even older than the song is the actual tradition of using holly to ring in the Christmas season. In fact, it may have even been used in Ireland during the time of the winter solstice long before the advent of Christianity. But for many, many centuries now, the Irish have celebrated Christmas and holly has been a part of that celebration.

Here's how it went in the olden days, according to Bridget Haggerty's An Irish Christmas - Then and Now. In preparation for Christmas the women cleaned the inside of their homes, the men cleaned the outside, and the children's job was to "scout the countryside for appropriate decorations to be cut and brought home on Christmas Eve." Holly, cuileann in Gaelic (pronounced "qwill-un"), was considered one of the best finds because of its colorful berries. After the "gathering of the greens", sprigs of these glossy leaves and clusters of red berries graced mantles, doorways and other places of the Irish home at Christmastime. According to Christmas in Dublin, the plant came to symbolize the Savior: the spiky holly leaves were the crown of thorns and the red berries were drops of blood from Jesus' face and head.

Lucky children in a few particular counties in the south of Ireland might be able to add mistletoe, or drualas (pronounced "dhroo-ah-lus") to their collection of greenery. Mistletoe also had a long-standing role in Celtic culture, symbolizing peace and fertility.

Many Irish emigrants took the tradition of decorating with holly and mistletoe to their new countries, and that may be why many of us hang holly and mistletoe at Christmastime today.

Image of the holly courtesy of Scenic Reflections.

The vintage postcard images above (circa early 1900's) are courtesy of twogatos.com. Visit the website to view more beautiful postcards.

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 5: Outdoor Decorations. (Apologies to Thomas MacEntee for taking liberties with the outdoor decorations theme for today and discussing indoor decorations with an outdoor flavor.) Make a visit to Thomas's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article originally appeared here at A light that shines again and was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

An Aidbhint agus Breith Chríost : An Irish Advent & Christmas

A light that shines again wishes you a Blessed Advent as you prepare for the coming celebrations of the Nativity of Christ! In Irish Gaelic those two seasons are called: An Aidbhint agus Breith Chríost.

As you prepare for Christmas this year, you might enjoy reading about some of the Irish Christmas traditions that I highlighted last year during Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. In the nine articles at Small-leaved Shamrock and seven articles here at A light that shines again, I hope you'll find inspiration during your Christmas preparations in the wonderful traditions of the Irish people as they have historically celebrated this glorious season.

Happy preparations to all of you!

You might also enjoy reading Bridget Haggerty's An Advent Memory and a little lesson on Irish Gaelic for the Advent and Christmas season, both on the Irish Culture & Customs website

Image of the Celtic Advent wreath courtesy of Santa It.

The borrowed days: an old Irish weather warning

Worried about bad weather in April? Maybe you should be.

An old Irish tradition warns that early April will hold some mean weather. Laethanta na Riabhaiche (the Borrowed Days) were said to be a trick from the month of March who had "borrowed" some days from April and then paid her back with bad weather. Nasty old March!

For more on this legend and what to watch out for in early April, read Bridget Haggerty's article The Borrowed Days at the Irish Culture & Customs website.

On the finer points of Irish lacemaking

No, I'm not actually going to explain to you how to do fine lacework. It would be hard for me to find the time and the patience to gain proficiency at that amazing craft.

However, I would like to share some of the finer points of Irish lacemaking with the regard to Irish history: namely the fact that it supported thousands of families during the decades after the Great Famine, providing a way for women to make money to help feed their families.

I enjoyed reading the Irish Family History blog's post about the topic entitled Irish Crochet Lace and Muings Lace School and following their link to the website for the 2005 ‘Irish Crochet Lace - 150 Years of a Tradition’ at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles in California. Thanks to the Irish Family History blog, I enjoyed viewing the slide show and reading the exhibit brochure, which gives a nice history of Irish lacemaking in Ireland along with details about the craft itself.

Speaking of Irish lace, ever heard the term "lace-curtain Irish"?

This term was not so much an Irish term as an Irish-American term. It was often used to refer to the more "settled" Irish immigrants - those that were no longer "just off the boat", so to speak.

Kate Marin's comment on the Wicked Good Guide to Boston English site sums up the term "lace-curtain Irish" very nicely:

Lace was an industry that poor women in Ireland were able to pursue whilst doing everything else required to run homes on no resources. However, like the produce and livestock raised during the Irish Famine, lace wasn't made for home use. It was only for export and the tourist trade. Thus, "lace curtain Irish" were doing well for themselves, & might well be lording it over those a rung or two lower on the immigrant ladder.

The home page for the exhibit at the Lacis Museum has a beautiful poem that honors those women who used every bit of their spare time to help support their families through the beautiful craft of Irish lacemaking:

A tribute to the human spirit.
Beauty born of necessity.
Conceived from lowly beginnings,
With a dream of higher aspirations,
It grew out of patience, perseverance and ingenuity,
To stand in majesty,
To feed a nation.

Muings Lace School in County Mayo is currently slated to become a heritage center and museum. For more information on the project please visit Fís na Muingi-Iorras's website: Save Muings Lace School.

Images of the Irish lace and instruction books from Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles, Berkeley, CA.

"The city where a century ago he came unwanted, he has made his own..."

If any city in the United States could be described as a place with strong Irish heritage today, it would be Boston. But that wasn't always the case. The city provided perhaps the most unpleasant welcome of any American city to the poverty-stricken Irish of the 19th-century. Yet today Boston is known equally for its Irish heritage as for its Puritan and Patriot origins.

After at least a century of discrimination and sometimes actual physical endangerment, the Irish finally found a place of acceptance in the city, and today it would hardly seem imaginable to have Boston without the Irish.

Of all the immigrant groups who made their home in Boston during the 19th-century, the Irish held the most strongly to their identity and culture. This was probably as much because of their mistreatment by other residents of the city as because of their strong traditional ways and beliefs.

As Oscar Handlin explains in his classic 1941 book, Boston's Immigrants, 1790-1880: A Study in Acculturation:

"Every phase of the experience in America [of the Irish who settled in Boston] heightened the disparity between their heritage and that of their neighbors. The physical barriers segregating them from the dominant cultural currents of the day disappeared in the New World; but the spiritual ones crossed the Atlantic in the hold of every immigrant ship. Reaffirmed and strengthened by the difficulties of the new environment, these restraints ruled Irish thoughts as vigorously in Boston as in Cork."

The Irish in Boston were different from other Boston residents. In a predominantly Protestant city, they were Catholic. In a world of intellectuals, well-to-do citizens and a thriving middle-class, they were dirt poor. Even as compared to other immigrant groups in the city (of which they were the largest) the Irish were at the bottom of the ladder economically.

As Kerby Miller writes in his Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America,

"Because of their alien religion and peasant habits, all seemingly repugnant to native institutions and bourgeois ideals, Irish Catholics provided easily identifiable targets for middle-class reformers and beleaguered Protestant workers who joined ranks in a second Great Awakening to purge the United States of everything sinful and foreign."

Miller goes on,

"The sacking of the Charlestown (Boston) convent in 1834 and the great Kensington riots of 1844 - both incidents ranging native and Irish Protestants
against Irish 'papists' - were only the most blatant examples of the religious and ethnic animosities permeating Jacksonian America."

Boston was not a safe place for the Irish in the early 19th-century and conditions did not improve significantly until many years later.

In her book Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900-1920 Paula Kane quotes Katherine Conway, a new resident who had just moved to Boston in 1880. Katherine observed,

"To a young journalist coming to the capital of New England from Western New York, it was like coming to another world... The whole aspect and outlook were radically different. There was a line of cleavage in Boston that she had not encountered before in the few cities in which she had dwelt. It was a frankly racial and religious line - a little more religious than racial."

Back in 1847, Boston had sent aid to the Irish during their time of need. According to Jim Vrabel's When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac, on February 18, 1847 an Irish Famine Relief Committee was organized at Faneuil Hall. The committee, which included prominent Catholics and Protestants, responded to Bishop John Fitzpatrick's plea to aid the Irish in "famine and despair". They eventually sent four provision-loaded ships to Ireland.

Sending aid across the ocean was one thing. Receiving the impoverished Irish as immigrants into their own city was another thing altogether for Bostonians. The mid-19th century saw the swelling of the city with waves of immigrants, most of them Irish. What was a strongly Protestant city with a proud connection to their English roots, became the new home of thousands of Irish Catholics looking for escape from famine and mistreatment by English overlords.

As Miller describes in Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America,

"Unskilled workers and servants, especially, encountered the ubiquitous 'No Irish Need Apply' notices when they searched for jobs in Boston, New York, and other major cities... Even well-educated, middle-class Irish Catholics experienced religious barriers to success and respect: 'Although in this country all religions enjoy perfect equality before the law, in society it is far otherwise,' lamented the Young Ireland exile John Blake Dillon."

By 1880, according to When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac, the city was the fifth largest in the United States and its population had grown to 362,839. This number included 114,796 foreign-born Boston residents, 64,793 from Ireland. The Irish were clearly in Boston to stay.

The year 1885 saw Boston's first Irish mayor: Hugh O'Brien.

Just a little over two decades later, in 1907, the city received a new Catholic archbishop, William Henry O'Connell. He would be elevated to Cardinal (Boston's first) in 1911. According to Paula Kane's book he established a "triumphalist, separatist Catholic subculture...sacred but equal, separate but integrated."

The city's Irish Catholics had received a spokesman, pleading on their behalf before God as well as the residents of Boston.

In 1908 the Boston archdiocese celebrated its centennial. What had begun as two priests and 2,000 parishioners had grown to 1,500 priests and over 1.5 million people. Archbishop O'Connell delivered the centenary sermon at Holy Cross Cathedral declaring:

"The Puritan has passed, the Catholic remains. The city where a century ago, he came unwanted, he has made his own...It is time for Catholic manhood to stand erect, square its shoulders, look the world in the eye and say, 'I am a Roman Catholic citizen; what about it?"

This story has a happy ending for the Irish. Modern Boston wouldn't seem itself without the Boston Irish Heritage Trail, numerous St. Patrick's Day celebrations, the Boston Celtics, even a library honoring a hometown Irish Catholic boy who became President of the United States.

Generations later, peoples who struggled to coexist live side by side and intermarry happily. And descendants of those struggling Irish, like myself, are amazed at what a difference one-hundred years can make.

Boston image thanks to National Geographic Urban Drives Photo Gallery.

Image of Mayor Hugh of O'Brien by John Angel James Wilcox can be found on the website of the Boston Public Library's Digital Image Gallery.

Image of William Cardinal O'Connell courtesy of American Catholic University of America.

"We searched for birds in every furze..."

As you might have known, yesterday was St. Stephen's Day and was traditionally the day for hunting of the wren in Ireland.

In honor of that tradition, which in modern times has been altered to be kinder to the gentle birds, I thought I'd post the words to this song by Sigerson Clifford. The song remembers the Boys of Barr Na Sráide and the days of their youth spent hunting the wren. It gives a lament over a part of Irish history and describes the songwriter's longing for "the place where life began": "that old town between the hills and sea".

Boys of Barr Na Sráide

by Sigerson Clifford

*Dreólín is the Irish Gaelic word for wren.

*A furze is a type of bush, similar to a gorse bush.

Oh, the town, it climbs the mountains and looks upon the sea
At sleeping time or waking time, it's there I'd like to be.
To walk again those kindly streets, the place where life began,
With the Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

With cudgels stout they roamed about to hunt for the dreólín*
We searched for birds in every furze* from Litir to Dooneen.
We danced for joy beneath the sky, life held no print nor plan
When the Boys of Barr na Sráide went hunting for the wren.

And when the hills were bleedin' and the rifles were aflame
To the rebel homes of Kerry the Saxon strangers came,
But the men who dared the Auxies and fought the Black-and-Tan
Were the Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

But now they toil in foreign soil where they have made their way
Deep in the heart of London or over on Broadway,
And I am left to sing their deeds and praise them while I can
Those Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

And here's a health to them tonight wherever they may be.
By the groves of Carham river or the slope of Bean 'a Tí
John Daly and Batt Andy and the Sheehans, Con and Dan,
And the Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

When the wheel of life runs out and peace come over me
Just take me back to that old town between the hills and sea.
I'll take my rest in those green fields, the place where life began,
With those Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

The above image of the wren boys of 1904 is from the book The Birds of the Isle of Man by P.G.Ralfe published in 1905.

The night before Christmas in Ireland

Breaking the fast, watching for angels standing on the spike of every holly leaf, and being sure to say your prayers - because every Irish child knows that all prayers said on Christmas Eve are answered...

These are some of the memories of childhood Christmases in Ireland shared by Brigit Haggerty in her essay An Irish Christmas—The Night Before. Perhaps my favorite part of her descriptive remembrances is this recollection and realization:

Drifting off to sleep, I can vaguely recall hushed voices in the other room, bits and pieces of Handel's Messiah, and a feeling of pure contentment. It would take me years and years to recognize and realize that these are the gifts that go on giving.

For another look at Christmas Eve in Ireland, this time a humorous one, see the book An Irish Night Before Christmas, written by Sarah Kirwan Blazek and illustrated by James Rice. Nevermind the yule log on the fire and glasses of eggnog, here you'll find the turf blazing in the fireplace and glasses of Irish stout. This charming children's picture book will bring a smile to the face of children of all ages at Christmas.

Here's wishing you a warm candle in your window and an Irish blessing this Christmas Eve:

The light of the Christmas star to you
The warmth of home and hearth to you
The cheer and good will of friends to you
The hope of a childlike heart to you
The joy of a thousand angels to you
The love of the Son and God's peace to you.

Nollaig Shona dhíbh!

Image courtesy Tipperary of Tara, Ltd.

The topic for this post was inspired by Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories at Destination: Austin Family. Check out his calendar daily this month for some good mini-memoirs of this nostalgic season. This post will be listed under Christmas Eve on December 24.

On French Hens, a Partridge and God Himself

In the spirit of the true meaning of Christmas, I was planning to write a post about the well-loved carol The Twelve Days of Christmas. I had learned several years ago that the objects throughout the carol had hidden meanings - they represented various aspects of the Christian faith. I understood that the carol had been written for use by persecuted English and Irish Catholics during the time of England's Protestant reformation. Or so I thought...

After a little bit of research on the subject (much thanks to Douglas Anderson's Hymns & Carols of Christmas website) I have learned enough about The Twelve Days of Christmas to write a book, never mind a blog post. And, no, the background of the carol may not be exactly what I had thought. But it does have a fascinating history steeped in the joy and merriment of the Christmas season which traveled through several countries before becoming an international phenomenon.

The song probably had its origin as a French carol and was sung as a sort of "chanson de geste" by the medieval troubadours of France, according to The Folk Carol of England by Douglas Brice.

Elizabeth Poston writes in The Second Penguin Book of Christmas Carols that the earliest written version of the song appears in "Twelth Day", a 13th-century manuscript located at Trinity College, Cambridge. The Twelve Days of Christmas was first published in a children's book called Mirth & Mischief in 1780, with its first appearance in a collection of Christmas songs coming in 1868.

Just to clarify, the "twelve days of Christmas" refers to the period of celebration between Christmas day itself and Epiphany on January 6. The song was originally sung by the French on Epiphany, otherwise known as Twelth Night.

In its more recent history, The Twelve Days of Christmas song has become a favorite throughout the traditional Christmas season and now our modern extended secular Christmas season which gets rolling in late November (and perhaps even earlier) in some places.

As for the meaning behind the symbols, here is the story as best I could find it. It turns out that a Catholic priest by the name of Fr. Hal Stockert had done some research for a project years back. In the process he came across some letters from Irish Jesuit priests to the motherhouse in Rheims, France. According to Fr. Stockert's memory (he hasn't been able to relocate the letters) some of the documents had mentions of the symbolism of The Twelve Days of Christmas being used as a secret catechism for persecuted Catholics at the time. Fr. Stockert posted his findings online not "as a doctoral thesis", as he put it, but "simply as some delicious tidbit [he] thought the world would be delighted to share over a holiday season". (See more about his story at Catholic Culture or Catholic Information Network. For another interesting discussion on the topic and a list of the symbols, see this CRI/Voice webpage.)

So it turns out that the carol, not necessarily written as a tool of faith, may have actually been used that way. Whether or not this was the case, thanks to this song we now have an interesting and memorable way to remember various aspects of faith.

Here are the symbols, according to the Catholic Culture webpage:

• true love = God Himself
• partridge in a pear tree = Jesus Christ
• 2 turtle doves = Old and New Testaments
• 3 French hens = faith, hope and charity (the theological virtues)
• 4 calling birds = the four Gospels and/or the four evangelists
• 5 golden rings = the first five books of the Old Testament (Pentateuch)
• 6 geese a-laying = the six days of creation
• 7 swans a-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and/or the seven sacraments
• 8 maids a-milking = the eight beatitudes
• 9 ladies dancing = the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit
• 10 lords a-leaping = the ten commandments
• 11 pipers piping = the eleven faithful apostles
• 12 drummers drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

Click here for the tune for The Twelve Days of Christmas along with lyrics in English and Irish Gaelic.

As the twelve days of Christmas draw near, I hope you'll take the time to read the story of the "Partridge's" birth written by one of the "four calling birds" in one of the "turtle doves". Make sure you obey the "ten lords a leaping", and I wish you a holiday season filled with "French hens!"

"Mass-going feet" and "a frosty dawn"

Every child has strong memories of Christmas mornings. The joy of the long-awaited day's arrival; the gift-giving; the beauty of the morning shared with family. Many Irish children in days gone by remembered the outdoor beauty of the morning of Christ's birth as they made their way to early morning Mass with their families.

Patrick Kavanagh, a well-loved Irish poet of recent times, has written a beautiful poem which brings to life his memories of those Christmas mornings. Here is a portion of his poem, A Christmas Childhood. Kavanagh's vivid description of the morning preparations and the family's walk to church on "Mass-going feet" can't help but make the reader sentimental for Christmases past.

...Outside the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking;
The light of her stable-lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn...

You can read the full text of Kavanagh's A Christmas Childhood at this Irish Culture & Customs webpage.

The topic for this post was inspired by Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories at Destination: Austin Family. Check out his calendar daily this month for some good mini-memoirs of this nostalgic season. This post will be listed under Christmas Church Services on December 17.

"A fairyland of gold and glitter to feast the eyes of a country child"

Christmas 1858 must have been a time of joy and sadness for Patrick Tierney. Just eighteen years old, I'm sure that memories of childhood Christmases in Ireland were fresh on his mind as he celebrated the season with the hope of a new young immigrant to America.

Wondering what his memories of Ireland might have been like, I was happy to find an account written in the 1920's by Consiglio Murphy. She wrote her memories of Christmas in East Cork "sixty years ago" - which would have been around the 1860's, a few short years after Patrick Tierney had arrived in America from the neighboring County Tipperary.

I enjoyed reading her memories about the pre-Christmas plum pudding process, and how each family member was required to stir the pudding to prevent a death in the family in the new year.

Visits with gifts of fresh milk to neighbors "with many children" ended up with she and her siblings returning filled with rich cake or plum pudding and a chide from their mother, "You took more from those poor people than you gave."

She also tells about her memories of riding into town with her parents in the "pony and trap" to "bring home the Christmas". On the way back in the dark of the Irish late winter afternoon, she remembers enjoying the sights of the lit gas lamps, "a fairyland of gold and glitter to feast the eyes of a country child, who only had an oil lamp and candles at home."

I can't help but wonder what young Patrick Tierney, a country child from Tipperary, feasted his eyes on during his first Christmas in Boston in 1858.

You can read the rest of Consiglio Murphy's memories of mid-19th-century East Cork Christmas at this Irish Culture & Customs webpage or in the book No Shoes in Summer by Merlin Press.

The topic for this post was inspired by Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories at Destination: Austin Family. Check out his calendar daily this month for some good mini-memoirs of this nostalgic season. This post will be listed under Christmas Grab Bag on December 15.

The vintage postcard image above (circa early 1900's) is courtesy of twogatos.com. Visit the website to view more beautiful postcards.

Get in the Christmas spirit - do your housecleaning!

The Irish have only a few Christmas traditions that stand out as traditionally Irish and not borrowed from other cultures in recent times. Perhaps the oldest of these traditions is - housecleaning! And it may, too, have been borrowed from other cultures - although it was as long ago as before the birth of Christ.

This is not your typical housecleaning. Traditional Irish "whitewashing the house" for Christmas involves cleaning and polishing the house and everything in it. As this Christmas Archives webpage puts it, "The cleaning of the house from top to bottom...Every window and glass sparking, all the silver polished till it shone." Take a drive through the Irish countryside in December and you may see a farmhouse that has the freshly whitewashed look.

Supposedly the "holiday cleansing" tradition originated in the purification ceremonies of ancient cultures, including the Mesopotamians circa 4000 B.C. It has long been a part of the preparations in Ireland (and some other European countries) for Christmas day, and can still be found in many rural areas today.

So get yourself in the Christmas spirit - go do some housecleaning! Whitewash your outhouse (if you have one); clean out the stables (if you're lucky enough to own livestock). If not, put up some fresh curtains and put out some new table linens. If you want to have a traditional Irish Christimas, it's time to purify and freshen up your home for Christmas in honor of the coming of the Christ Child.

Better get to work!

The topic for this post was inspired by Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories at Destination: Austin Family. Check out his calendar daily this month for some good mini-memoirs of this nostalgic season. This post will be listed under Christmas Grab Bag on December 15.

Image of the hand-made corn brooms courtesy of Lehman's. Image of the whitewashed cottage courtesy of Cuilcagh Tours.

Deck the halls with boughs of cuileann

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Fa-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la..."

This beloved carol, believed to be originally of Welsh origin, had already been around for quite awhile when Mozart used it for a piano duet in the 18th century. You can read more about its interesting history in William Studwell's A Christmas Carol Reader.

Even older than the song is the actual tradition of using holly to ring in the Christmas season. In fact, it may have even been used in Ireland during the time of the winter solstice long before the advent of Christianity. But for many, many centuries now, the Irish have celebrated Christmas and holly has been a part of that celebration.

Here's how it went in the olden days, according to Bridget Haggerty's An Irish Christmas - Then and Now. In preparation for Christmas the women cleaned the inside of their homes, the men cleaned the outside, and the children's job was to "scout the countryside for appropriate decorations to be cut and brought home on Christmas Eve." Holly, cuileann in Gaelic (pronounced "qwill-un"), was considered one of the best finds because of its colorful berries. After the "gathering of the greens", sprigs of these glossy leaves and clusters of red berries graced mantles, doorways and other places of the Irish home at Christmastime. According to Christmas in Dublin, the plant came to symbolize the Savior: the spiky holly leaves were the crown of thorns and the red berries were drops of blood from Jesus' face and head.

Lucky children in a few particular counties in the south of Ireland might be able to add mistletoe, or drualas (pronounced "dhroo-ah-lus") to their collection of greenery. Mistletoe also had a long-standing role in Celtic culture, symbolizing peace and fertility.

Many Irish emigrants took the tradition of decorating with holly and mistletoe to their new countries, and that may be why many of us hang holly and mistletoe at Christmastime today.

Image of the holly courtesy of Scenic Reflections.

The vintage postcard images above (circa early 1900's) are courtesy of twogatos.com. Visit the website to view more beautiful postcards.

Apologies to Thomas MacEntee and his Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories for taking liberties with the outdoor decorations theme for today and discussing indoor decorations with an outdoor flavor. Check out Thomas' calendar daily this month for some good mini-memoirs of this nostalgic season. This post will be listed under Outdoor Decorations on December 5.