School: Gowna
- Location:
- Scrabby, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: Hugh Murray
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0986, Page 071
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- XML “Christmas”
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- A white Christmas was always the desired one as "a green Xmas brings a full graveyard".In this village Christmas always brought a "stir". The families had all relatives in America England and Scotland so the letters always poured in at the approach of the Feast. This gave great subject matter for talk around the firesides at night. The letters received from sons and daughters in other lands movements there and then the bills were discussed, and in each case the bills sent home grew higher in amount as the stories went from mouth to mouth.The big market was held on the second Thursday before Christmas and it was a big affair. The shop windows were loaded with toys. The Parents did the market and of course brought home the toys, so for a few days the noise of penny whistles would deafen you. The biggest store of the year was brought home from this market and of course the Xmas box from the shop keeper - was discussed and sampled at length. After this market too the farmyards seemed a bit deserted. Gone were the pigs at the Xmas fair, the turkeys were(continues on next page)
