The hallowed period of Christmas was celebrated by the ancient Irish with great pomp and festivity. Fleming’s ‘History of Ancient Irish Customs’, gives an elaborate account of the festivity and amusement at this season of gaiety and mirth. He writes: “On Christmas Eve the village maidens went to the woods to gather ivy and holly, which they generally wove into garlands, for the decoration of the village church and their own houses.
“At seven o’clock in the evening the church bells greeted ‘old father Christmas’ with a merry peal; then the immense Christmas candles were lit up, the large block of ash blazed on the smiling hearth, the enormous wassail bowl of whiskey punch smoked upon the antique oak table, and after the priest had said grace and offered up a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving, the bards had chanted a carol on their harps, the feudal chieftain caused the door of his spacious hall to be thrown open and bade all that entered welcome. After feasting on fish and fruits, the wassail bowl went round briskly and the bards then raised the festive strains.”
He continues: “As late as the sixteenth century, it was the custom in County Kerry for the poor retainers of the chief to carry about to the neighbouring houses with the wassail-cup, an image of our Saviour, together with a quantity of roasted apples, steeped in a large tankard of mead, so that all might be reminded of the birth of the Messiah, and have an opportunity of drinking to the health of the chieftain and his lady. In those remote days, a wassail bowl, or cup was placed on the tables of Lords, as well as on those of the Abbots, whose doors were ever open for the reception of poor and the stranger.”
In ‘Archdal’s Monasticon’ (circa 1770) there is an engraving of the wassail bowl, which belonged to the abby of Kildare. The inside (which held two quarts) was furnished with eight pegs, at equal distances one below the other, to stop visitors from excess drinking. This measurement allowed half a pint of strong wine to each person.
At midnight the lord and the peasant went to church to offer their devotions and hear a solemn mass; but after two o’clock on Christmas morning, devotions and austerities gave way to pleasure and rejoicing. On their coming home from church, the wassail bowl, which though rudely shaped from Galway marble, contained liquor fit for the lips of gods, and worthy to celebrate return from conquest. The wassail liquor was composed of wine, brandy, some water, spices of various kinds, and roasted apples, which floated in triumph on its foaming top. Music and song always ushered in Christmas morning. The Christmas day was like a day of victory; every church and house was as green as spring. The laurel and the holly, with its scarlet berries shining like fireflies, decorated the alter of hospitality. On that day, all distinctions of rank and station were forgotten at the great dinner in the chieftain’s hall, where the tables groaned with the weight of the feast.
The Anglo-Saxons, after the devotions of Christmas day were over, always observed the ceremony of lighting enormous candles in the house, which were called ‘Christmas candles’ and laying a large log of wood on the fire, which they called a yule log or Christmas block. The custom in all probability has been derived from the ancient Irish, as Bede (the famous English church historian) writing circa 730; admits that the Irish druids, before the introduction of Christianity, began the year on the eighth day before the calends of January, which is now our Christmas day. The pagan Irish worshipped the sun, and observed the eighth of January as a day of devotion and jubilee, and it is thought that the Christmas block or yule log, derived its name from the ceremony of burning it as an emblem of the cheerful return of the sun and an increase of its vivid light and genial heat.
A translation from an old Irish manuscript shows the form of blessing used by the Earl of Desmond, in blessing the feast and his guests on Christmas Day 1438. ‘The blessing of this festive season be upon our good lord and lady, and upon all that hear me, its gladness in every heart, its praises on every lip. May the aged forget the ravages of time in the hallowed recollection of that blessed eternity, which was assured to all Christians by the coming of our blessed Redeemer; and may the young be happy in administering the comforts and lightening the cares of those who tread the downhill path of life beneath the weight of years. it behoves to contemplate this period of the year with peculiar earnestness but while it claims our piety and most serious thoughts, it by no means excludes the rational enjoyment and mirth, which the goodness of providence permits to all its creatures in the merry Christmas time. Then may the wassail bowl pass around with temperate cheerfulness and may we receive all the good things prepared for here with ardent feelings of gratitude to Him who sends us every good comfort and nourishment!
