Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
‘There’s something about Christmas. There’s something about it that creeps inside and finds the child in you’ – Barry’s Tea radio ad, Christmas train set, 1994.
CHRISTMAS SEASON ARRIVES earlier every year. At least that’s how it feels, as shops put up their Christmas displays before the curtain has fallen on Halloween.
Still, there’s a comfort in the arrival of the traditions that belong only to those short few weeks leading up to 25 December, from the first Christmas song of the season and the revival of beloved TV and radio ads to the eagerly awaited arrival of Santa in the shopping centres and towns around Ireland.
This year the Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) — one of nine research programmes in the Royal Irish Academy — is celebrating Christmas through the ages, so put on your Rudolph pjs, pour yourself a cup of something festive and enjoy a feast of Christmases past…
If the earliest Christmas celebrations in Ireland largely looked very different to today, some aspects have remained constant: feasting, rest and a sense of renewal as the days start to lengthen once again. Fraternal squabbling too, like the spat between two eighth-century monks – Dublittir, abbot of Finglas, and Máel-ruain (qv), abbot of Tallaght – who disagreed about whether to relax their strict monastic rules at Christmas. Máel-ruain forbid his monks to drink beer, believing it caused forgetfulness of God; Dublittir took what was surely the more popular (and arch) approach of allowing it on the grounds that his monks would get to heaven just as well as those of Máel-ruain.
A slightly later account of Christmas in Ireland comes from the pen of Gerald of Wales. His Expugnatio Hibernica (written c.1189) described a feast held by Henry II in a hall specially constructed in Dublin for the occasion: ‘The feast of Christmas was drawing near, very many of the princes of the land repaired to Dublin to visit the King’s court, and were much astonished at the sumptuousness of his entertainments and the splendour of his household; and having places assigned to them at the tables in the hall, by the King’s command, they learnt to eat cranes which were served up, a food they before loathed.’
The addition of cranes to Christmas dinner unsurprisingly didn’t catch on! But the food provided in 1351 by Uilliam Buidhe O’Kelly, king of Uí Mhaíne, would be much more familiar to the modern palate. He invited poets, nobles and the poor to a Christmas feast so large that temporary accommodation had to be built for all the guests.
The meal included beef, pork and oatcakes slathered with butter and honey, and the occasion was so great that it gave rise to the Irish saying ‘cuireadh fáilte Uí Cheallaigh romhainn’ (‘we got the O’Kelly welcome’) to describe generous hospitality.
Two centuries later, a feast hosted by Brian na Múrtha O’Rourke was so impressive that it lived on in the folklore of Co. Leitrim for years after, inspiring the song ‘Pléaráca na Ruarcach’, composed about 1700 by Hugh McGuaran, set to music by Turlough Carolan and later translated into English by Jonathan Swift.
And while turkey has largely replaced goose as the traditional meat served on Christmas Day, other treats and nibbles remain firmly part of the Irish Christmas experience, including tins of USA or Afternoon Tea biscuits from George Jacob’s bakery and Cadbury’s chocolate, supposedly based on the chocolate recipe invented by Sir Hans Sloane in the seventeenth century.
Music has always played an important role in celebrating Christmas, especially Christmas carols. One of the earliest carols written in the English language is found in a fourteenth-century manuscript written by Franciscan friar Michael of Kildare, while the twelfth-century ‘Wexford carol’ is considered one of the oldest surviving in the European tradition – it was re-discovered by musician and historian William Flood at the turn of the twentieth century. According to tradition, this carol could only be sung by men. A Christmas favourite, ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night’, was written c. 1698 by Dubliner Nahum Tate.
More recently, Christmas has inspired some of pop music’s most recognisable hits. Christmas shoppers browse to the strains of Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’, Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas’, Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ and, of course, the most famous of them all – The Pogues’ ‘Fairy tale of New York’, based on the 1973 novel of the same name by J. P. Donleavy.
Theatre has played a major part in Irish Christmases for centuries, though a seventeenth-century provost of Trinity College Dublin, Robert Ussher, proved himself a precursor to Dickens’ Scrooge when he banned Christmas plays for being frivolous.
Of course, pantomimes are the theatrical show now most closely associated with Christmas, and Dublin venues such as the Theatre Royal, the Queen’s Theatre and the Olympia and Gaiety theatres have a rich history of staging traditional Christmas ‘pantos’. Since the first modern ‘panto’ was staged in the Gaiety in 1874, people have flocked to watch comedy superstars such as Maureen Potter, Noel Purcell, Harry O’Donovan and Jimmy O’Dea playing the all-important panto Dame.
In the latter part of the twentieth century, television and film became a central feature of Christmas, especially in the days before streaming services when the RTÉ Guide Christmas special was pored over for Christmas movies. Classics such as A Miracle on 34th Street (1947) starring Maureen O’Hara, and the musical version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1966) starring Wilfrid Brambell as Ebeneezer Scrooge, are still beloved and are screened annually.
For some however, it isn’t truly Christmas until Dermot Morgan’s Father Ted and Frank Kelly’s (qv) Father Jack have lost their way in the lingerie department of Dunnes Stores; for others, Christmas starts when the Billie Barry kids high-kick their way across the screens during the Late Late Toy Show. Certain ads on television and radio evoke a sense of nostalgia, including ‘Christmas train set’ for Barry’s Tea – one of the longest-running radio ads that was created by Catherine Donnelly and Peter Caffrey of Irish International in 1994.
The Christmas tree is a surprisingly late addition to the Christmas tradition – Presbyterian minister Alexander Porter Goudy is thought to have had one of the first Christmas trees in Ulster, perhaps as early as1857. Time off from work was surprisingly rare too – nineteenth-century businessman Charles Dawson prided himself on being an employer who allowed his workmen to take Christmas Day off.
And of course, before the store’s demise, no Irish Christmas was complete without a trip into Dublin city on 8 December to visit Santa and see the Christmas window in Switzer’s flagship store on Grafton Street.
Nollaig shona daoibh go léir.
Go Deeper…
ESB advertisement, ‘Going home’ (1980s)
Penney’s Christmas TV ad (1990)
Barry’s Tea, Christmas train set radio advertisement (1994)
An Post, Walking in the air Christmas TV ad (2005)
Guinness Christmas TV Ad (c. 2011)
Laura Marriott, ‘Pantomime’, History Ireland, 29:3 (May/June 2021)
Niamh Wycherley, ‘Christmas in Medieval Ireland’, Maynooth University, Spotlight on Research blog (2022)
Dr Niav Gallagher is a medieval historian. The Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) is one of nine research programmes in the Royal Irish Academy and Niav joined the DIB team in 2018, researching and writing biographies as well as curating the database of prospective DIB entries. Niav is co-editor of Irish lives in America (RIA, 2021), a collection of fifty biographies of Irish emigrants to the US, with Liz Evers.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where the school are shredding mats to be used as meat in the cafeteria
Sorry for going off-topic but I have to ask you- how do you pronounce your name Ste? Is it ‘stuh’, or ‘stee’, or ‘stay’? Puzzled me for years.
Pronounced like “Stee”.
‘Ste’, I believe that is German for ‘a whales vagina’, is it not?
There’s no way that’s true.
Sorry Emmet think you’re confusing that with “San Deigo”.
*Diego
No its horse vagina with no horse
There’s more to life than being grealy grealy grealy ridiculously good looking.
Ste classy San Diego!
Ste is Latin for “darkness of an open ringpiece”
I think your pulling our legs Justin
It feels a lot better bein an unemployed musician than an unemployed pipe fitter..
Depends on where your fitting the ‘pipe’
This comment thread is turning into an acid trip.
I have discovered that my wife has no brain or heart, should I be entitled to a refund or exchange in this circumstance as I feel that I have been mislead and feel that these items should have been included
That’s kind of worse.
Horseradish
But it’s only radish!
not if your a vegetarian. :-)
But if you are not, and you want to eat meat, and youre paying for meat, your rights are being infringed upon
@ MK, if your’e a veggie, why buy meat pie?
@ Tony Duff. I am a veggie and would of course buy this meat pie with no meat, hence being a veggie QED ;0)
When are they going to discover vegetarian pies with just meat in them?
Some kind of vegetable matter ….. Feck that sounds worse
That’s why vegetarians go to Iceland
There has never been any ham in hamburgers
I couldn’t figure this one out for years – about there being no ham in a hamburger.
…until a friend was kind enough to tell me that burgers were invented in Hamburg.
Nope… They were invented in america by a man from hamburg
Is that not the same thing?
I didn’t read the america bit properly – Saturday night, a few pints on!
They were invented in Hamburg, New York
It’s the vegetarian beef pie they tested.
Alan’s fact of the day: “Crabsticks” do not actually contain any crab and from 1993 manufacturers have been legally obliged to label them “Crab flavoured sticks”.
You mean Surimi?
I have to say that brought a chuckle………
Iceland gets their first bite of a minced pie and it leaves them stumped. I remember my first minced pie I had at Christmas many years ago, I think they’ll soon discover its mostly raisins ;)
The history of the minced pie is interesting – In the 16th century, the royalty ate mince pies with minced beef – the proper stuff!
The kitchen staff would make pies with leftover fruit and spices and gave these “mince pies” to the peasants at Christmas as a good will gesture.
Now we’re in the 21st century and the rich [i.e. supermarkets] are at it again, except this time we, the peasants, are paying for the the deception.
The horse left Iceland for France.
But who took them?
The bloke on that radio ad., obviously!
;-)
The head of Iceland will probably say “that’s the Irish for you….”
Maybe Gerry and SF did it?
Im boycotting eating
One thing that does stand out for me almost as a footnote to the article is that it has been handed over to authorities, no doubt whoever is responsible will be held accountable and be brought before the courts. Any chance of that here, well probably not because no doubt it would upset the wrong people.
That’s Iceland for ya, they locked up the bankers, toppled their government and regulator. Kicked the FBI out of their country for interrogating a wiki leaks informant.
A bit of a mix up with their food that will be sorted, person who is responsible found out and suffering the consequence by the end of the week.
In ireland we have bankers without banks whats the problem
Ill have one of those please and an alcohol free beer to wash it down!!
We have digressed to groundshit day
I’d imagine a lot of the vegetable matter would be soy, just like in a lot of dog foods the “meaty” chunks are actually soy not meat!
That’s a relief!
not surprised – with all the 1€ crap their always selling.
This is Iceland the country, not the frozen food chain.
That would be a vegetarian matter, Ted.
Where’s the beef?
At the end of the dole queue. They got there ahead of the horses
I dont get it
what next? chicken in chicken nuggets?
Where can I buy one?….seems to be the only safe thing to eat at present….
in iceland they sell horse meat labelled as horse meat in the market
“Vegetable matter”. That’s a great name for we don’t have a clue what it is
Ah sure I got mince pies at Christmas and all they had in them was fruit.
You are all stone mad, thanks for the giggles reading this thread
LOL
Maybe there are no horses left in Iceland, they were all sent to the rest of Europe for our pies…
For years in Ireland, we have pork-free Bacon Fries,and fish-free Scampi Fries, not to mention Tayto & Walkers “cheese & onion” crisps with Paprica & Garlic – only King don’t have these
E119 flavour please
Yes – E119 is a standard in the Building Industry for Fire Resistance!
You eating too much horse!
Could be worse it could be a Puffin pie they eat them there too as well as Icelandic foal steaks there a delicacy
have your say