Search Results for 'Christmas Eve'

Sibéal Ní Chasaide will join The Moy Singers as the special guest for their Christmas concert on Friday, December 1, in the Great National Hotel, Ballina. Mary Ruane Brogan, chairperson of the Moy Singers, said: “We are so honoured and excited to be welcoming such a high profile guest to Ballina for our annual Carols by Candlelight Christmas Concert.”

This is it, the last Friday before Christmas. Just two days to go, and no doubt you are busy completing Christmas time chores like whitewashing your house or making a three branched tallow candle. The way we celebrate, observe or mark Christmas has changed and will continue to change. That is not a criticism of modern life, that is life. Traditions and customs evolve, they always have done, they always will. How did you mark St Martin’s Day on November 11 last? Did you kill a rooster and sprinkle the four corners of your house with its blood to keep all danger and trouble away? Rightly considered bizarre today, but that was a custom in Mayo some 100 years ago. Recognising that those long established traditions were in danger of being forgotten to an albeit slowly modernising Ireland, the Irish Folklore Commission developed a recording scheme that ran between 1937 and 1938 and which invited Irish Free State primary schoolchildren to compile and submit folklore from their local area. The children responded in their tens of thousands with folktales, customs and crafts, gleaned from their extended families and written down by their own hands. Thankfully, schoolchildren from across Mayo participated and their returns document our county’s not too distant Christmas beliefs and practices. 

If dank February nights make you yearn for the madness that was the festive season, it’s time to book your seat for Athlone Little Theatre’s production of The Lying Kind, by Anthony Neilson. This nightmare of a rollercoaster ride will grab you by the throat and shake out any remaining Christmas nostalgia, while at the same time making you groan with laughter.

Gardai are investigating a series of burglaries which took place in the city and county over the last few weeks. Between 4.30pm and midnight on December 21, a house in Frenchpark, Oranmore, Co Galway was broken into and cash, jewellery and personal belongings were taken.

While you and your family are tucking into your festive dinner in the warmth and comfort of your homes and family circles, worrying about last-minute gifts, and whether or not to put an extra bottle of wine into the fridge, spare a thought for the troops of the 54th Infantry Group who will be at democracy’s outpost as part of the UNDOF mission on the Golan Heights throughout the holiday period.

‘If we had extra geese or cockerels my mother and myself would bring them to the market in Loughrea on the second Thursday before Christmas that was known as 'Big Thursday'. The market was held on the main street that time, you would not collect much money, maybe three shillings per goose but that would help to buy the Christmas.

The Snug has a host of live sports coverage and great music to help you ring in the Christmas and new year with a bang.

In a packed Oranmore Church last week, Dr. Eamon Martin, the Archbishop of Armagh, consecrated a new 500kg bell which will ring loud accross the parish for the first time on Christmas Eve.

We love Christmas and have launched our Skeff Christmas Countdown campaign!

The GBC celebrated eighty years in business in 2016 and felt it was fitting to mark the occasion by updating their restaurant’s menu and marketing themselves to a wider audience. The menu, now runs all-day from 12PM, still has all of the “Old Favourites” for those who enjoy a more traditional meal when dining out, as well as plenty of new dishes.