School: Mullagh (C )
- Location:
- Mullagh, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: Elizabeth Murchan
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1003, Page 214
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Mullagh (C )
- XML Page 214
- XML “A Christmas Eve Custom”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- On Xmas-eve Mullagh village and all the surrounding district is ablaze with lighted candles and is a most picturesque sight.
About nightfall the people in each house "light-up". Earlier in the day, they have put a number of candles on each sash - say six candles in every window. The members of the family take it in turn to tend and renew the candles and illumination is kept up till well past midnight or, at least, till the people are going out to midnight Mass.
It is a pretty custom and a religious one, too. The country folk say it is done to show the Holy Family that, had they been in(continues on next page)
