“Don't blow the tall white candle out
But leave it burning bright,
So that they'll know they're welcome here
This holy Christmas night!”
This is one of the verses from the beautiful poem “An Ciarrí Carúl Nollag” (“The Kerry Christmas Carol”) which is described as an evocation of an old Irish custom in which each household would leave a lighted candle in their window on Christmas night. It is the belief and hope that Joseph, Mary and the Child who would be wandering the roads looking for a place to rest, would know that they were safe and welcome.
Christmas is a very important time of year in Irish culture; it is a time of family unity and remembering friends everywhere. Nowadays whilst the lighted candle may be replaced by an eclectically powered candle, that tradition still exists, and in recent years more poignant was homes like my own reflect on who won't be home for Christmas rather than who is.
Both my sons are away from home this year. One has married and lives in England with his lovely wife. My other son, like many thousands of young Irish from across this island, is in Australia working. In a recent “Skype” from Perth he gave out to me that he could see no Christmas decorations up in the house. I had actually said to my wife not to bother much with Christmas as neither of our sons would be home. I have met many mothers and fathers from throughout this district who expressed the same sentiments. Yes Christmas, and all that goes with it can bring you down if you let it in on you. In other circles I hang about in we call it a “Pity Party”
However, a trip to the much maligned Newry Swimming Pool changed my focus. The first man I met in the steam room had buried his young son as a result of a car accident some months ago. That set me reflecting about people like young Dariush whose lovely smile and presence left this earth nearly a year ago, the “Three Amigos” three friends who lost their lives through suicide and whose fundraising night I attended during the year, young Rory Staunton whose funeral I attended to let his family know that just as they cared about our “Undocumented Irish” in America, we now cared about them, my young American cousin Samantha who at 28 died too young, and many many more Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anam: May their souls be at God's right hand.
It all became clear, the scourge of emigration which has haunted this land affects practically every family in the locality and more so at Christmas. Yes we miss you our sons, daughters, neighbours and friends, but hey, we can Skype, we can phone, it will pass and as the Wolfe Tones sing “Those big Airplanes go both ways”. For the families that have experienced the loss of a loved one, no such opportunity. They have to cope as best they can or even cannot.
So let’s get the Christmas Tree and decorations up, let us rejoice in the meaning of Christmas. I am proud of my sons and the many lads and girls I know who are now living and working away from Ireland. I look forward to the day that we can offer them here in the land where they were born, educated and raised, the gifts of hope and opportunity.
Until then “May peace and plenty be the first to lift the latch on your door, and may happiness be guided to your home by the candle of Christmas”
Nollaig Shona Dhaoibh
** Pat Mc Ginn, from Camloch, County Armagh, is an IrishCentral reader.
15 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Smyrnian | Dec 28, 2012, 06:16 AM EST
Ancavker - I work with lots of people from Spain and we live in an area chock full of Greek immigrants who seem to run just about every business around here. You must be joking....
ancavker | Dec 27, 2012, 04:27 PM EST
Wounded: I have a love hate relationship with my people. When they are at their best,no one can beat them. And no one is better. But when they are at their worst, they are a miserable bunch.
WoundedKnee | Dec 27, 2012, 02:42 PM EST
ancavker: You remind me of something I realized years ago. This is that despite the sometimes nauseating nostalgia and parochialism that the Irish manifest when drunk and overseas, the fact is that the Irish really have extraordinarily shallow roots in their homeland. No other nationality emigrates at a whim. The Irish are like tumbleweed--they'll let themselves be blown anywhere.
ancavker | Dec 27, 2012, 01:35 PM EST
There are lots of Americans who are riding out the bad economy here in the U.S., and working in menial jobs below their educational and intellectual levels. The Irish who are running away could do the same. And as bas as things are in Ireland, look at Greece and Spain, h where are their young people running away to?
Smyrnian | Dec 27, 2012, 11:12 AM EST
WKnee - my point is that if the current Irish, the best educated and youngest population in Europe, wish to stay at home they can occupy menial tasks. If they have ambition and high expectations for themselves, staying at home truly is not a viable option. Been there and done that.
WoundedKnee | Dec 27, 2012, 08:32 AM EST
Smyrnian: What year did you leave Ireland? Were there streams of Lithuanians, Poles, Chinese, Indians etc etc flowing in thru Arrivals just while you were departing? Because if there were then indeed you had a choice, and the fact that large numbers of foreign migrants could find work was proof that there was work in Ireland and that there was no need to emigrate. Those Irish who have left Ireland in the past few years did so of their own volition. There's lots of work in Ireland, countless jobs can't be filled, and foreign migrants are imported to fill them. Or are you going to tell us that foreign migrants are arriving even tho there is no work for them?
Smyrnian | Dec 27, 2012, 07:58 AM EST
Wounded Knee - I emigrated from Ireland and I certainly had no choice unless I settled for a bleak future. That is the part you neglect to mention. If you are in a burning building you have a choice Jo or burn. Saying that person has a "choice" may be technically true but an intellectually dishonest statement.
WoundedKnee | Dec 27, 2012, 01:50 AM EST
"The scourge of emigration"? Have some sense, McGinn, emigration is a free choice. There are lots of jobs in ireland, anyone who wants work can find it. Even people coming from Latvia, Laos or Luanda are able to find work, regardless of deficient English language. The Irish whining about emigration needs to stop.
WoundedKnee | Dec 27, 2012, 01:47 AM EST
Silling: Stay where you are. Ireland doesn't need another bankrupt alcoholic.
Smyrnian | Dec 26, 2012, 03:04 PM EST
Frosty. I may be an Irishman but I do not appreciate being called a racist pejorative name. Knock it off.
Frosty38 | Dec 26, 2012, 09:08 AM EST
good for you. You must be a true "MICK" I was not born there but second generation Boston irish and I would move there or snowbird then instead of Florida. which I have called home for 12 years
Smyrnian | Dec 26, 2012, 06:50 AM EST
Unfortunately this is an old story; it's just a new experience for the current generation. There were 11 of us in my family and 7 of us had to emigrate. This is just more of the same. Ireland could never take care of its own for very long. Sad to see massive emigration happening again.
Searlit | Dec 25, 2012, 11:02 PM EST
That's the spirit!
handsome68 | Dec 25, 2012, 05:46 PM EST
Joyce and Beckett, to name but two others, would agree with you. In either country, you'll want to stop or at least watch the drink, you know. Can't imagine why you'd leave France, myself francophone and francophile and been there many times, but all the very best wishes in the "old country", Silling.
Silling | Dec 25, 2012, 09:17 AM EST
As an expatriated Irishman for some 30 years now, I can't say that I ever missed an Irish Christmas until this morning when I watched the O2 concert with Shane Macgowen singing the Fairytale of New York. Suddenly I felt as though I am in the wrong place and I am not just speaking about today in Provence, no, I am putting my house on the market and returning to Ireland despite the state of the economy, bad weather and my alcoholism. There is something about Ireland that has never permitted me to abandon it.