With the festive period rapidly approaching, we took a look back with the help of Armagh County Museum’s curator Sean Barden, at some of Armagh’s most ancient Christmas traditions.
While some may seem foreign to the modern day reader, others remain in some variation – both changed and unchanged.
Mr Barden provided Armagh I with access to 24 searchable volumes of ‘Armachiana’, a collection of unpublished writings by the first curator, TGF Paterson.
Within Volume 22 lay a wealth of information surrounding Christmas traditions – some steeped in folklore and superstition.
Among the most comprehensively covered was the tradition of the Christmas Rhymers – a custom those in Armagh are fortunate enough to recognise today despite its ancient roots.
The popular tradition featuring a cast of basket-headed, costumed figures often includes ‘Old Woman’, ‘Jack Straw’, ‘Doctor’, ‘Beelzebub’, ‘Turk’ and ‘Big Head’.
Back in 1934, when TGF Paterson was likely to have been making the recordings for Volume 22, he feared that the custom had become ‘almost extinct’ all except for parts of Drumcree where he noted the tradition was ‘flourishing’.
Yet, thanks to a dedicated group of revivalists, the tradition has returned to the county with flair, bringing entertainment in the form of music, storytelling and drama to schools and festivals throughout Ireland and around the world.
The Armagh Rhymers
One of the lesser known traditions – which occasionally also featured straw masks – took place on St Stephen’s Day with the ‘Huntin’ the Wren’.
Steeped in legend, the tale behind the custom portrays the little, brown bird as St Stephen’s betrayer for flapping its wings to signal his whereabouts to St Stephen’s attackers.
Hunters, typically men and boys, would gather on St Stephen’s Day to hunt the bird, placing one atop a decorated cage before parading around their neighbourhood.
Notably, Paterson said that wren hunting had largely disappeared by 1934 – all except for the ‘Armagh-Louth border’ where small groups of birds were often observed.
It is noted, however, that children could be seen on St Stephen’s Day carrying decorated – but empty – cages, unable to manage more than a few verses of the ‘Wran song’.
For Paterson, Armagh’s residents – both young and old – held a number of Christmas related superstitions.
For example, it was often considered unlucky for Christmas Day to fall on a Saturday, but lucky if it fell on a Sunday.
It was also widely accepted by Armachians that Christmas decorations should be removed on or before the Twelfth Night.
According to the text, the Twelfth Day was also considered a day in which ‘charity should be freely given’.
However, most folklore relating to the date has been lost for the Armagh area.
A common, proverbial greeting at Christmas was also thought to help forecast the New Year’s weather.
It went as follows, ‘A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard’ and, despite how this may sound, it simply meant that if the six days before and after Christmas were ‘carefully noted’ they would show how the months of the year would ‘behave’.
How many of these ancient traditions were you aware of – or better yet – practice today?
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