Customs and Tradition
‘ Christmas Eve (24th December), Oiche Nollag.
Christmas Day and Christmas Evening (25th December.
This is called ‘men’s Christmas ‘. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day it is principally men who enjoy that celebration because they get a drop to drink and plenty of everything.
Big supper night (31st December) Oiche Na Cuda Móire
New Year’s day and the Evening of New Year’s Day (1st January).
New Year’s Day is also called the first day of the New Year. It is said that anyone who does not eat enough on Big-supper night will not eat enough for a year from that day.’
Material about Christmas given by Peig Sayers to Seosamh Ó’Dálaigh, the folklore collector, in February 1945.
Little Christmas, or Nollaig Bheag in Irish, is one of the traditional names in Ireland for January 6, more commonly known in the rest of the world as the Celebration of the Epiphany. It is so called because it was the day on which Christmas Day was celebrated under the Roman calendar, before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
When discussing celebrations for Nollaig Bheag /Nollag na mBan with a friend, originally from CeannTrá recently, but now living within a stone’s throw of ‘The Pale’ she was able to dredge up from her childhood memories that the women at that time still had the burden of the work load, ‘mar is gná’.
Some things never change!
She recalled the folklore of the water turning into wine at midnight on Nollag Na mBan (January 6), the rushes turning to silk, and the gravel to gold.
However none of her forbearers from the foot of Mount Eagle sampled the vino at the well or turned to stone afterwards. Indeed either did they benefit from any silk or gold other than that earned in Springfield, Mass. in the USA, where masses of them went for better living conditions.
Bhí duine múinteara linn as Beal Átha an Ghaortaigh ag caint ar an abhar cheanna le deanai freisin. She recalls that the women gathered together in the houses on Nollag Na mBan where the iced Christmas cake was cut and enjoyed with a cup of tea.
As mná of Bantracht Na Tuaithe Luimnigh gather on this year’s Nollag Na mBan in Woodlands Hotel, Adare to launch their centenary year, I doubt that
tea will be the only beverage imbibed.
Bliain Nua faoí mhaise.
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