Nollaig na mBan
Women's Christmas - In Celebration of Women
Nollaig na mBan in Irish means Women’s Christmas.
In Ireland, January 6th was celebrated down through the years as a day for women. Traditionally, on this day, women would take a day away from their usual household chores and childcare and take a day of well-earned rest. Their husbands would look after the household and the children to facilitate this tradition. The women would then visit each other in their homes or at the local pub, sitting in the snug and sharing some tea, cake or wine, sharing stories and celebrations to mark the close of the season and their hard work.
At the time, women were primarily responsible for rearing large families in small cottages and were the primary homemakers. Nollaig na mBan was a tradition mainly celebrated in rural Ireland and stayed strongest in the west of Ireland, in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) areas. Some scholars have suggested that the tradition faded somewhat, for a period of time, with the demise of the Irish language; however, in recent years, we have seen a recurrence.
Women today gather all around the country on this day to celebrate the women important to them in their lives, their female ancestors, their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, as well as each other and charitable causes.
Christmas Tradition
In the past, as with today, the lead-up to Christmas was hectic. Women in rural Ireland spent the period churning butter, making pudding and cake, and trying to make some extra money by rearing turkeys to sell in the town market. They also sent eggs to the market; the money earned was called ‘egg money’. I remember hearing about my grandparents and great-grandparents sending eggs to Galway, some 50 miles away, to be sold at the market. Across the country, women did similar tasks, and if any money was left over, they could spend it on themselves on Nollaig na mBan.
On the eve of Nollaig na mBan, called Oiche Nollaig na mBan, candles were lit in the window. In Irish folklore, many stories recall those traditions. One man recalls the candles lit on Inis Mor, Aran Islands. He remembers the candles lit in the windows, travelling the roads at night, and seeing every house alight with candles. In the days before electricity, this was a spectacular sight. As a child, I remember my mother lighting the candles in every window in the house on the eve of Nollaig na mBan. As children, we had to check on the candles occasionally to ensure they were safe. It is a practice that she still observes today.
I like to imagine the women of our past getting excited for their day of celebration, perhaps laying out their best coats and getting ready for the well-earned day away and how they gathered together to share their stories and to share that day and their lives with fellow women.
On the eve of Nollaig na mBan, called Oiche Nollaig na mBan, candles were lit in the window. Inis Oirr, County Galway, Ireland
To Witness and Celebrate the Ancestors
Today, in Ireland, Nollaig na mBan is a celebration of all the women in our lives and a remembering of the women who came before us. I am reminded of the poet Eavan Boland, who said in the poem 'Our Future Will Become The Past of Other Women' where she writes:
Show me your hand. I see our past,
Your palm roughened by heat, by frost.
By pulling a crop out of the earth
By lifting a cauldron off the hearth.
By stripping rushes dipped in fat
To make a wick make a rush light.
That was your world: your entry to
Our ancestry in our darkest century.
Ghost-sufferer, our ghost-sister
Remind us now again that history
changes in one moment with one mind.
That it belongs to us, to all of us.
Eavan Boland
Perhaps what this Nollaig na mBan can symbolise, and that poem reminds us of, is to take the courage to meet ourselves now in new ways. To give permission to ourselves to step into our lives as our authentic selves, and in so doing, we honour the women who came before us— that it belongs to us, to all of us.
On the threshold of a new year, let it also be a moment of pause to set our intentions for ourselves on our path. Traditionally, it was a day of rest and acknowledgement of the year's hard work—a symbolic acknowledgement of oneself.
Despite the challenges we still face in our modern world, something in this celebration reminds us of the pleasure in the small moments, the sharing of life together, the beauty of the simple pleasures of life, and the courage to step into what is yet to be lived through us.
Rothar mór an tSaoil
(The Great Wheel of Life)
by Louis de Paor
Airím ó am go chéile
san aragal is sia isteach
in dhá chluais mo chuimhne
do ghlao giorranálach im dhiaidh
dom chur uait ar bhóthar casta an tsaoil
Now and again I hear
in the farthest corner of my memory
your laboured, loving, shout after me
sending me off on life's knotted road...
(English translation of the poem)
Earlybird Bonus - Returning to the Well
Join me for an exclusive Nollaig na mBan live online gathering** from your hearths’ around the world to share this treasured Irish tradition.
We will have some cake and tea, listen to stories, poetry, folklore, and music, and light the candle at our metaphorical hearthstone to set our intention for our year ahead and our work together in Returning to the Well. We will celebrate the women in our lives, remember those who came before us, and meet what we need to honour on our separate paths as we heal the mother wound and step into our own lives, empowered to be ourselves.
**Exclusive only as a bonus offering to Earlybird members of Returning to the Well.
Sign up before January 4th to gain exclusive access.**
My Foremothers / Mo Sheanmháthair
My maternal grandmother, Sarah Curran, born in Maíghros, Cárna, in Connemara in 1915 and died 1969.
My mother, Una Ní Chaodháin (Keane) and my paternal grandmother, Mamie Breathnach, with me as a baby, Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin on my Christening Day 1978 Connemara, Ireland.
My paternal grandmother, Mamie Breathnach (Mamie Mháirtín Pháid) born in Coill Sáile 1923 and died 1995. Connemara, Ireland.
My maternal great-grandmother, Máire Einniú, was born in 1869 in Glinsce (Glinsk), Connemara. Photographed with her husband, my great-grandfather, Máirtín Curran, who was born on Oileán Máisean (Mason Island) in 1854.
My paternal great-grandmother, Kate Breathnach, was born in Leitir Mealláin, Connemara 1871. Died 1950.
My paternal great-grandmother, Anne Connolly (1897-1975), with her husband Mártin Breathnach (Walsh), my great-grandfather (1887-1971). Coill Sáile Connemara.
References:
Louis de Paor poem 'Rothar mór an tSaoil' taken from - 'The Brindled Cat and the Nightingale's Tongue'. 2014. Bloodaxe Books. Eavan Boland poem - 'Our Future Will Become The Past of Other Women' Poem Commissioned by the Government of Ireland’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and the Royal Irish Academy to commemorate women winning the right to vote and casting their first ballot on December 14th, 1918.A special limited hardback edition of the poem by Eavan Boland illustrated by Paula McGloin is exclusively available from the Royal Irish Academy