Christmas Blessings to ACP Members, Contributors and Visitors
from the ACP Leadership Team: Gerry O’Connor, Tim Hazelwood and Roy Donovan.
Christmas Eve Remembered
Patrick Kavanagh
I see them going to the chapel
To confess their sins. Christmas Eve
In a parish in Monaghan.
Poor parish! and yet memory does weave
For me about those folk
A romantic cloak.
No snow, but in their minds
The fields and roads are white;
They may be talking of the turkey markets
Or foreign politics, but to-night
Their plain, hard country words
Are Christ’s singing birds.
Bicycles scoot by. Old women
Cling to the grass margin:
Their thoughts are earthy, but their minds move
In dreams of the Blessed Virgin,
For One in Bethlehem
Has kept their dreams safe for them.
‘Did you hear from Tom this Christmas?’
‘These are the dark days.’
‘Maguire’s shop did a great trade,
Turnover double – so Maguire says.’
‘I can’t delay now, Jem,
Lest I be late in Bethlehem.’
Like this my memory saw,
Like this my childhood heard
These pilgrims of the North…
And memory you have me spared
A light to follow them
Who go to Bethlehem.
OÍCHE NOLLAG
Máire Mhac an tSaoi
Le coinnle na n-aingeal tá an spéir amuigh breactha,
Tá fiacail an tseaca sa ghaoith on gcnoc,
Adaigh an tine is téir chun an leapan,
Luífidh Mac Dé ins an tigh seo anocht.
Fágaig’ an doras ar leathadh ina coinne,
An mhaighdean a thiocfaidh is a naí ar a hucht,
Deonaigh scíth an bhóthair a ligint, a Mhuire,
Luíodh Mac Dé ins an tigh seo anocht.
Bhí soilse ar lasadh i dtigh sin na haiochta,
Cóiriú gan caoile, bia aguis deoch,
Do cheannaithe olla, do cheannaithe síoda,
Ach luífidh Mac Dé ins an tigh seo anocht.
© 2011, Máire Mhac an tSaoi
From: The Miraculous Parish / An Paróiste Míorúilteach
Publisher: O’Brien Press / Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Dublin
Translation:
CHRISTMAS EVE
With candles of angels the sky is now dappled,
The frost on the wind from the hills has a bite,
Kindle the fire and go to your slumber,
Jesus will lie in this household tonight.
Leave all the doors wide open before her,
The Virgin who’ll come with the child on her breast,
Grant that you’ll stop here tonight, Holy Mary,
That Jesus a while in this household may rest.
The lights were all lighting in that little hostel,
There were generous servings of victuals and wine,
For merchants of silk, for merchants of woollens,
But Jesus will lie in this household tonight.
© Translation: 2011, Gabriel Fitzmaurice
From: The Miraculous Parish / An Paróiste Míorúilteach
Publisher: O’Brien Press / Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Dublin, 2011
A Christmas Poem in Irish
Coinnle ar Lasadh is a Christmas poem in the Irish language by the great Aran Island poet, Máirtín Ó Direáin (1910-1988). It’s a short simple poem describing the tradition on the Aran Islands of lighting twelve candles on the 5th of January, the eve of the 12th day of Christmas.
Link to reading:
https://www.allaboutirish.ie/blog/a-Christmas-poem-in-the-Irish-language
On the Birth
St John of the Cross
With the divinest word, the virgin
Made pregnant, down the road
Comes walking, if you’ll grant her
A room in your abode.
FELIZ NAVIDAD
Happy Christmas from Edinburgh to Liamy, the ACP leadership team and all our fellow correspondents on our ACP site.
Paddy.