Superstition and feasting: the unique Christmas traditions of north Wexford
Fintan Lambe learned about Wexford’s own festive traditions
ON HIS TRAVELS around the county collecting folklore and learning about Irish traditions, Ballygarrett native Michael Fortune has found that there were some things about Christmas past in Wexford that didn’t necessarily exist elsewhere. Some of these still live on, especially among older people, but many of them have faded from memory for most.
These days, Michael said, commercialism has largely taken hold over the festive season, but as recently as the 1950s and 1960s, Christmas was a smaller affair, and money was often scarce. He said that Christmas now seems to start with November’s Black Friday sales, a new import to Ireland, and the traditional days of Christmas, such as the 8th of December, are not observed as they once were.
‘People really didn’t have as much as they have now,’ he said. ‘And the element of stress wasn’t there. Present giving was much smaller. Parents would give children whatever they could.’
Several traditions seem to have survived the pre-Christian era, when the celebration centred around the Winter Solstice. ‘Light is central part of the celebration as we are at the turning point in the year when the evenings begin to get brighter and the life starts to emerge again from the depths of Winter,’ he said. ‘This celebration of light is something which has carried into the Christian celebration with guiding stars, light candles etc.’
‘This celebration of fire and light has survived in North West Wexford where there is a tradition of giving a block or stick as a present, especially to people in need or were elderly,’ he added. ‘In recent years, this has now moved from a single block to a bag of sticks for Christmas and this is probably related to other European Yule log customs.’
Another strong tradition in the area is the simple tradition of people collecting holly and decorating their homes. People also collected holly and gave it as a gift to a neighbour, especially an older person. Michael remembered his father doing this.
He said that there was always an element of feasting at Christmas, like there was at Halloween and Easter. ‘However, the sheer the quantities and amounts were different,’ he said. ‘We have become consumers now. Up until the 1950s and 1960s, people, especially country people in Wexford, were storing spuds, onions, and carrots to get them through the winter.’
‘I spoke to one woman (Bridget Buckley from Killanne) who remembered her mother getting a tin of peas,’ he added. ‘Her mother thought she was being fancy, but the Bridget told me on camera that she hated them.’
Brussels sprouts were non-existent, and the Christmas turkey wasn’t on every table either. ‘Some people remember having turkey, but others had a goose or in my father’s case, he said if they had half a pig’s head they’d be lucky,’ said Michael. ‘There’s a great saying I heard recently from Bridget Buckley who said people made do with what they had and were content with that. “God Almighty never sends a Christmas, but enough for it .... ”’
Christmas trees weren’t terribly common until the 1960s and 70s. Michael said that this tradition was imported into Ireland via England from Germany in the 19th century and it spread through the towns first before reaching the country areas. ‘In many ways, it is very similar to our May Bush tradition which is still very strong in Wexford,’ he said. ‘The artificial tree brought the tree into everyone’s home and if you didn’t have one of those, people might have brought in a bough of a tree and put it in a bucket and decorated it. In saying that some people did have trees, but it wasn’t widespread.’
‘However decorating with holly and ivy was across the board, even the townies had that,’ he added. ‘This holly was then placed over picture frames, especially religious ones, as well as over the thresholds of the doors which was very significant as it protected the entrances into the home.’
‘One lovely thing that has survived is people always took a bit of straw from the church crib and put it in their wallet, which made sure they had money for the year,’ said Michael. ‘A lot of people still do it. Straw from the crib was y brought home and put in the pig house for good luck, or to protect the house from fire.’
‘On Christmas Eve a lone candle, often red, was left in a window or on the kitchen table to welcome Mary and Joseph in,’ he continued. ‘There was a tradition with country people around Gorey that on Christmas Eve night, the animals were given the gift of speech, but it was bad luck if you heard them. You could go out and hear them if you wanted, but people I spoke to were too afraid to go out.’
‘Families never ventured out of the home on Christmas Day as we do now,’ he said. ‘People stayed at home and in many cases, drink was never consumed.’
‘Come the 26th, people needed to get out and if you were lucky the Christmas mummers or Christmas fools also called around to you house,’ he said. ‘They were a local name for the Wren Boys. They are now generally called Wren Boys, but they were generally known as mummers, which is an old term for someone in disguise. The Wren Boy tradition still survives in pockets in Wexford, especially with our travelling community around Bunclody and Carnew are still doing this.’
St Stephen’s Day was a day for sport, especially the hunt, and greyhounds would also be brought out.
Michael said that some older people will still only put up the decorations on December 24, and will leave them up until Little Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. It is now generally called Nollaig na mBan, but most people who actually practiced it never called it this, calling it instead Little Christmas. ‘On that day, the family sat back down again to have a replica of the meal they had on Christmas Day,’ he said.
‘One lovely thing from North Wexford was that the holly was taken down on January 7, and it was left aside for making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. They always used a bit of the holly in the fire for good luck.’
One tradition nationally was Handsel Monday, the first Monday of the year, where it was traditional to give a wallet with money in it to a child so they would have luck for the coming year. And on New Year’s Eve, if you had two doors in the house, you opened the back door at midnight to let the old year out, and opened the front door to let the new year in.
‘There was an awful lot of superstition with the threshold of the door,’ explained Michael. ‘Red haired people had a hard time. You wouldn’t let a person with red hair be the first in through your door in the new year. They often had to wait outside until someone with black hair came along to go in first.’
So while some traditions might be fondly remembered, and much missed, there are some that are most definitely better left in the past.
As well as collecting and preserving information on traditional culture, Michael is working for RTÉ on its National Treasure series. For more information, visit folklore.ie.
YOU WOULDN’T LET A PERSON WITH RED HAIR BE THE FIRST IN THROUGH YOUR DOOR