Christmas in Ireland

It is the run-in to Christmas and the madness has long started in Ireland. We at Look Around Ireland have long since given up attempting to explain the mentality that seems to beset Irish people when the days start getting shorter. Christmas in Ireland starts immediately after the October Bank Holiday weekend. Or rather the commercial exploitation of this holy event starts then. The radio adverts are the usual way the season is inaugurated, subtle reminders to book your Christmas staff party or hotels offering festive season packages that you need to book now or you’ll be disappointed! And so on.

The heavy stuff gets under way in mid-November. The dreaded songs start crashing into your brain no matter what channel you switch to. The old reliables make their annual appearance. The seemingly forever young Slade still in action from the mid seventies, with Noddy Holder strutting his stuff on some show or other, the eyes bulging more and more as he gets older. Then you have of course Bob, Bono and all that gang from that the Live Aid hit single of 1985, Do They Know its Christmas, a song about famine in Africa and the suffering of the little children. Twenty two years have passed since it was the Christmas number one and the great irony and sadness is that it could be released again because nothing has changed- just substitute Ethiopia for Darfur and a hundred other places.

Look Around Ireland has a particular favourite from 1987, Shane Mc Gowan, the Pogues and Kirsty McCall with Fairytale of New York, a very evocative song that lifts the spirits of this scribe. Shane McGowan being of Irish decent spends many a vacation in Ireland while sadly, Kristy McCall is no longer with us, killed in a water skiing accident some years ago.

The early introduction of Christmas songs on the radio is one of the very minor irritations of an Irish (and perhaps other countries) Christmas. However the total overwhelming commercialization of the season is a particularly Irish phenomenon since we all became cubs of the Celtic Tiger. Panic seems to overcome the Irish people – and yes, it is mostly women- who seem to think that there will be a famine when the Christmas break comes around. Shopping centres become something of a war zone with endless queues and short tempers providing car-park rage, trolley rage and the latest must-have gadget rage. The so called ‘season of goodwill’ resembles anything but in the lead up to Christmas in Ireland.

The entire concept of Christmas has changed from that of the holy celebration of the most important religious event on the Christian calendar to a marketing and commercial bonanza that is totally peripheral to what the period is supposed to be.

In Ireland, instead of the joy of Christmas for those that it really is meant for – the little children- drink, drugs and the eruption of family disputes means that for many children Christmas is one of terror and abuse, instead of harmony and happiness. The pursuit of earthly pleasures from over indulgence on drink and food, to spending far beyond your means just to keep up with the Jones has in recent years multiplied out of all proportion.

One of the most obvious elements is the fad, imported from America of course, of dressing up your house in garish multi-coloured lights and extravagant displays of various Christmas artificacts. One only has to drive through a regular working class housing estate to find some homes dressed in totally over the top illuminations more suited to a town square. Worse still, by the time Christmas arrives there will be many more of the same in those estates with the “I can do better than you” attitude of the neighbours coming to the fore. The credit cards are maxed out in getting one up on the people up the street. Come January, like revenge, one-upmanship is a dish best served cold as the lights are dismantled and the question is posed as to what was that piece of madness we indulged in? Come February when the credit card bills start arriving, the memories of Christmas past become very unpleasant indeed!

I always feel that Christmas should first and foremost be family orientated. It used to be until it was hi-jacked by the commercial Mafia, such as Coke, Pepsi, Budweiser, Guinness and every multi-national electronics company you can think of, who produce the latest gizmo game that creates peer pressure from kids to force their parents to go into debt to acquire this new toy. Clever marketing and false rumours by the manufacturers of impending shortages serve only to increase the frenzy to get hold of one of these things for their beloved kids.

In America Christmas lasts for one day, despite all the neon lights. However a month earlier they have Thanksgiving, a wonderful long weekend in which families all get together, no matter the distance to travel. There is warmth and a depth to this occasion without the commercial blitz that is Christmas on this side of the pond.

We could do well to emulate this spirit of Thanksgiving from America and import it into the Christmas festival of fun and frolics that passes for Christmas in Ireland.

Happy Christmas all!

Sam Maguire