Even Historians like Christmas - but what are Irish Traditions.

Santa Claus buried in Ireland?

Kilkenny Abbey may be final resting place of Saint Nicholas

By JAMES O'BRIEN
, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer



Published Sunday, December 20, 2009, 8:37 AM
Updated Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 12:15 PM





Irish historians say there is evidence St. Nicholas' remains were brought to Ireland.




The body of the heart-of-gold man later known as Santa Claus is buried in Ireland, according to a new report.
St. Nicholas, who lived during the 4th century and was Bishop of Lycia in Turkey, was canonized soon after his death in 346 AD.
He was known for his good deeds and generosity, and the Santa Claus legend sprung up around him. He was known for giving anonymous gifts to the poor and to have placed coins in the shoes of people who left them out for him.
Now, historians in Ireland say they have evidence that his remains were brought to Ireland and buried in Jerpoint Abbey by Irish Norman crusaders.
According to local historians and stnicholascenter.org, the church there was "an unusual grave slab with an image of a cleric, thought to be a bishop, and two other heads. The cleric is said to be St. Nicholas and the heads, the two crusaders who, so the story goes, brought Nicholas' remains back to Ireland.
"Though the church dates from 1170, the grave slab appears to be from the 1300s. The tale tells of a band of Irish-Norman knights from Jerpoint, traveling to the Holy Land to take part in the Crusades. On retreat, as they headed home to Ireland, they seized St. Nicholas' remains, bringing them back to Kilkenny, where the bones were buried.
"Evidence lends some possible credence to this tale as the Normans in Kilkenny were keen collectors of religious relics – possibly even more so than the Italians. And it is known that Norman knights from Kilkenny participated in the Holy Land Crusades.

The Irish Twelve Days of Christmas

By Bernd Biege, About.com Guide


You all know the twelve days of Christmas, from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" to a partridge in a pear tree. But what happens during those twelve days in Ireland? I'll try to give you a short run-down, day by day. Actually for fourteen days, from Christmas Eve to the feast of Epiphany.
December 24th - Christmas Eve

The Christmas tree was only imported quite recently into Ireland - but Christmas Eve was the time when candles were lit. After sundown several candles, one for each member of the household, were put into the windows. Either as a modernized pagan tradition or "to guide the Holy Family". The largest candle was known as coinneal mór na Nollag ("the great Christmas candle"). Then it was off to church ... And a drink with the neighbors afterwards.
December 25th - Christmas Day

If you are in search of peace and quiet, this is your day - Ireland is virtually dead to the world on Christmas Day. The day is spent with close family, barricaded into the home, eating Brussels sprouts and watching the annual re-run of "The Sound of Music" on RTÉ. Only around 11 AM do the streets become crowded, with even the unbelievers heading for mass. Maybe the most boring day of the Irish year for visitors. Head for natural attractions, everything else is closed.
December 26th - St. Stephen's Day (or Boxing Day)

The day of the "Wren Boys" - except in northern Ulster disguised young men go around, reciting nonsensical poems, begging for treats and carrying a dead wren (these days generally in effigy). Similar traditional activities, though at a slightly more sophisticated level, are connected with the mummers. They are active in Ulster, Dublin and Wexford, keeping folk theatre alive.
December 27th -The Sales

This is the day shops go into overdrive - the post-Christmas sales start and queues begin to form as early as seven o'clock in Dublin. Avoid Brown-Thomas, Arnott's and Clery's around opening time ... unless you want to be amongst the mob hunting for the best bargains. By the way, December 27th is also the feast day of John the Evangelist.
December 28th - Feast of the Holy Innocents

On this day Herod apparently ordered the slaughter of all first-born - making "childermas" one of the unluckiest day in folk custom. Don’t start any business ventures or journeys, to be sure don’t start anything. The "boy bishops" were de-throned on this day. But this medieval tradition has died long ago, in today's Ireland you find no young adult taking over a bishop's throne over the Christmas period.]
December 29th
December 30th

There are no specific traditions connected to these days - today they are used for shopping (mostly stocking up on alcohol) or taking the kids to the zoo, also a time-honored tradition, especially in Dublin.
December 31st - New Year's Eve

Ireland doesn't do New Year's Eve in a style to rival New York's Times Square, London's Trafalgar Square or Edinburgh's Hogmanay - parties and celebrations are a scattered affair. And very alcohol-fuelled. If you are visiting over this period it might be a good idea to pre-book one of the organized festivities. Unless you want to join the masses trying to get a pint at the pub ...
January 1st - New Year's Day

"All is quiet on New Year's Day" ... U2 were right - the morning starts of with a deathly quiet. Mainly due to the revels of the night before. Nobody remembers that this is the "Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord Jesus Christ". As in Roman times this was also was the feast of Janus, the two-faced god of doors and openings. Why not visit the ancient Janus-like figures on Boa Island. You'll be most likely the only person there.
January 2nd - Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus
January 3rd
January 4th

These are days generally used to visit more distant friends and relations, mopping up the left-overs so to say. There is no set agenda.
January 5th - Twelfth Night Eve and Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night was traditionally the time when Christmas proper ended - hence the "Twelve Days of Christmas" (starting on December 25th). It was a night of feasting, merriment and also practical jokes. These days school starts again around this time, marking the end of the "Christmas holiday" for everyone. The last wild party will, however, more than likely be thrown on a convenient weekend, not necessarily on 12th night.
January 6th - Epiphany

This day is the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, traditionally connected to the Adoration of the Magi, or Old Christmas Day (according to the Gregorian Calendar and still observed by some orthodox churches). In Ireland it is better known as Nollaig mBan - Little Christmas or "Women's Christmas". This was the day when women were cherished, could put their feet up and (after twelve or more days of slaving away to keep the menfolk happy) and enjoy. An almost forgotten tradition.
Handsel Monday

We must not forget the Irish tradition of Handsel Monday, the first monday in January - when children would get small gifts, called (you guessed it) "handsels"

Irish Christmas Songs



Various Irish Christmas Songs
St Patrick introduced Christianity to the Irish Isles and Irish people embraced Catholicism with fervor. Christmas is celebrated with the greatest of religious and social reverence. Irish Christmas songs hark back to the middle ages when the Wexford Irish melody was first performed in the 13th century. It was the most famous of the Christmas carols sung by ancient Irish people and was borne from the cultural heritage of the Irish.
This Irish song originated from a region in Ireland called Country Wexford, hence the name given to the Christmas melody. Irish Christmas songs of old include ‘Curoo, Curoo’ which is a holiday song of birds. This particular song was first sung in the 19th century. The Clancy Brothers popularized this song in recent times.
Certain Irish Christmas songs that have survived to contemporary times have royal elements in them, such as ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. Cecil Alexander was a famous Irish singer and songwriter who composed and sung this song in the early 1850s. Henry Gantlet did the musical arrangement for this Christmas song.
One of the Irish Christmas songs that has been translated into various languages and sung by non-Catholic sects is ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’. This song is a hit among children who enjoy singing them as Christmas carols. It commemorates the larger festival of Christmastide, which lasts for 12 days.

Cecil Frances Alexander



Hymn Writer
1818-1895
image of Cecil Frances Alexander Location of PlaqueBlue Plaque to Cecil Frances Alexander

Cecil Frances Humphreys was born in Dublin, but spent a good part of her later life in Londonderry and Strabane; her husband, William Alexander, himself a Derry man, was appointed Church of Ireland bishop of that city in 1867. He later became Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.

Cecil Frances was a keen supporter of the Oxford Movement, and in 1848 published Hymns For Little Children, which include three of the most popular hymns in the English language: "Once in Royal David's City," "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and "There is a Green Hill Far Away." Charles Gounod, the composer of Faust, said that some of her lyrics "seemed to set themselves to music."

A further selection of her works - hymns, tracts and poems - was published a year after her death.

http://www.ulsterhistory.co.uk/cecilfrancesalexander.htm

Ancient Irish Christmas Celebrations
The worship of the natural world was the basis of ancient, pre-Christian faiths practiced by Irish Druids and important festivals revolved around the seasons. When Christian missionaries attempted the conversion of Northern Europeans into the Christian faith, the date of 25 December was chosen to mark the birth of Christ, or Christmas, as it corresponded with the winter solstice, a powerful pagan celebration of nature. The date also coincided with Sol Invictus, a Roman solar holiday on which solar deities were worshipped as the Sun advanced northward.
Christmas is the focal celebration of the Irish. Irish Christmas songs have survived through the ages to present times and are delightful melodies energetically sung during the Christmas season. Christmas carols of Irish songs are a favorite among all denominations of Christians and certain songs have been translated to a variety of versions.

August 4, 1914 saw the outbreak of World War 1. Four Months later the hopes of many were dashed, however, one flicker of light shone like a beacon - that of the Christmas day truce between the German and British armies. However, events in Ireland that Christmas could not have been more different. One week earlier, on 19 December, the radical nationalist newspaper The Irish Volunteer listed what it referred to as 'Acceptable Christmas Presents'. These included a list of everything that was required 'to equip the Soldier for the Field'. The newspaper was not talking about the soldier in Flanders but here in Ireland where the National Volunteers were expected to take up the defence of Irish shores the following January, under the command of the British war office.
Writing on the issue on 22 December, Liam de Roiste a radical nationalist and diarist believed that the use of the volunteers by the British government was a clever move. De Roiste believed 'they (the government) probably hope, a German force will be up against national sentiment'. On 23 December, the Cork Examiner voiced the concern of many, which was how long the war would last? However, the editorial did not give any dates or time when it expected the war to end, but it did state that many of the guesses forwarded by experts have come and gone and there was still no sign of an end. Nevertheless, the editorial believed it would depend on the number of men and materials that were required to fight. In other words, the war would end when the warring nations could no longer put men and materials into the field.
Another concern was the growing sense of loss that many people had experienced since the war began, a concern expressed in the Christmas Eve edition of the Freeman's Journal. It believed that Ireland should now be celebrating a Christmas that restored the national rights of the nation (several months earlier Ireland had received Royal Assent for Home Rule). However, this would not now be the case due to the 'awful effusion of blood, of suffering and death', that had visited many Irish homes that Christmas. And instead of a 'prayerful Christmas' the major issue that would concentrate the minds of many that Christmas was their loved ones that were fighting in the battlefields of Europe, dead, never to return.
The same day, the Cork Examiner's editorial mirrored the editorial in the Freeman's Journal, with one marked difference. The Cork Examiner concerned itself with how the French and Belgian peoples would now celebrate Christmas with a war raging in their lands. As if, to emphasise that Christmas was in itself a season of peace and Christian ideals, the Cork Examiner suggested that, Christmas was now a 'time of blood-lust, of slaughter, of poverty and horror'. Another was the plight of the poor and those who supported them. This was something that also concerned Liam de Roiste. He felt that the war did not offer any greater opportunities to Ireland's growing numbers of unemployed and the poorly paid workers who lived in towns and cities, only a higher cost of living.
Two days later, on 26 December, the Cork Examiner editorial could not hide its disgust at the dropping of a bomb on Dover on Christmas Eve. It suggested that instead of terrifying the people of Great Britain and Ireland with such attacks, the only thing Germany got out of it was a 'waste of good petrol'. Five days later, on 31 December, Liam de Roiste writing his last entry for that year, expressed his belief that the Great War was like the tower of Babel, when man and his pride tried to storm heaven itself, but were humbled by God - something that may happen to men again matter what achievement man - made. Strangely, though the tower of Babel that Liam de Roiste wrote about would continue for another four years before finally come to an end on November 1918 with the loss of ten million men and countless numbers wounded, maimed and shell shocked, something that no one expected or believed four years earlier on Christmas Day 1914.





http://www.waterfordcountymuseum.org/exhibit/web/Display/article/190/