Mary O’Sullivan: Christmas was a very big event then – now it’s a big event commercially, but then it was a big event from a different perspective. It was the time of year when – we talk about spring cleaning now, but then it was the Christmas cleaning. In the run-up to Christmas the dishes were taken down off the dressers, all the cobwebs were knocked down and windows were cleaned and the whole place was whitewashed.
My father was born on a farm about a mile from the village, and had a significantly different upbringing to my mother in the village, and my father used to say that Christmas on a farm was a very big event – this was before electrification, in the era of the tilly lamp. People didn’t just hop into the car and go to town – most people wouldn’t have had a car, just a horse and trap if they were lucky or a donkey and trap. So they would have only gone to town a few times a year, and going before Christmas was a major event.
On Christmas Eve there was the lighting of the candle – a big red wax candle, put into a jam jar filled with sand, ringed with holly and lit by the youngest member of the household. Then the neighbours rambled in.
The concept of rambling went out with the advent of television, but it was how people entertained themselves in the 20s, 30s, 40s. They walked to one another’s houses at night time and talked about what had happened during the week, weddings, funerals, wakes and local affairs, and someone would get out an accordion and tell stories and sing songs.
Ray O’Sullivan: Christmas Eve was a fast day, and all we could eat was salted ling fish, and it tasted terrible. People dreaded the thought of it from about October, but it was nearly like a penance. It used to hang in the fishmongers and you got the smell off it.
Christmas Eve was like good Friday is now, (with all shops closed - BK), and that was just in the mid-1970s and 80s, and it’s funny how quickly things have changed in such a short time.
The O'Sullivans were interviewed by RTE radio about the Christmases of their childhoods, December. 2009. Photo: The canal outside our house a few winters ago.
1 comment:
Merry Christmas to you and your family. I don't comment often but I do read and enjoy your posts.
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