Moya Roddy celebrates Nollaig na mBan

January 6, the twelfth and final day of Christmas, was always known in Ireland as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas or Little Christmas. As a reward for their hard work over the festive season, women were rewarded with a day off from the house work and traditional roles were meant to be reversed in the home - the men did the women’s house work while the women rested and gathered together casually.

Here is a poem by Moya Roddy, taken from her collection, Out of the Ordinary, which was short-listed for the Strong/Shine Award. The poem reflects old traditions associated with Nollaig na mBan from a different time, which we should remember, cherish and celebrate.

Nollaig na mBan

Wise Men came bearing gifts,

guided by a star so bright it lit up

the Heavens; big as the star

that blazed in our hallway announcing –

Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming,

the goose is getting fat –

I longed for a goose but we always

got a turkey – a twenty pounder

from out the country;

my father carrying it aloft,

hunter-gatherer for a day.

The bird hung in the scullery, pale,

featherless, until my mother

set about cleaning it, spreading

newspaper on the table,

humming while she worked.

Sometimes she’d pause: treat us

to Adeste Fideles, The First Noel –

the house falling quiet as our

ordinary mammy – hands sticky

with innards – sang like a star.

Women out West reared turkeys,

used the cash to buy a few hours freedom

on Nollaig na mBan. Where we lived

it was the Feast of the Epiphany: the day

decorations came down. Once the Magi

had visited, every wisp of tinsel, coloured bauble,

each magic fairy light vanished –

home returning to a drab normality,

parents to mere mortals.

My mother never sang on Nollaig na mBan

– stayed mum – the star the last thing

she took down, folded to size, put away.

 

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