Diddley clubs, wallpaper, early Mass and planking the Holly Bough. Women from Dublin and Cork share their Christmas memories.
Eilish from Cork city describes the diddley clubs, which also ran in Dublin. Women would pay into the clubs on a weekly basis over the year to save for Christmas.
When the 'diddlum' was paid out a week before Christmas, the younger members of the household were pressed into service. New wallpaper was purchased for the living room, tarpaulin covering (similar to linoleum) for the floor and oilcloth for the table.
Eilish recalls a Christmas Eve where her mother who was working at home sewing garments changed her mind about the wallpaper while it was being hung. There was only one thing to do,
Down to Barrack Street, into Stevie Mahony with the rolls that were left, and changed them for another colour.
Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve was not on during the Emergency, so people went to an early Mass on Christmas morning instead, and had their breakfast when they came home,
We would go off at the dawn and start at the currant cake when we came back.
Actor and storyteller Eamon Kelly also remembers going to early Mass on Christmas Day and how the dark chapel was lit up with the morning sun,
The light of the candles which was so marvelous at first would die down, as God's own light came through the window.
Friends Rita Clarke and Annie Gahan from the Liberties in Dublin have lived next door to each other all their lives. They went to six o'clock Mass on Christmas morning, dressed in 'new' second-hand clothes which their mothers bought from the 'tuggers' in the Iveagh Market.
As regards festive entertainment, The Holly Bough is what many Cork people look forward to over the Christmas period. An annual magazine first published in 1897 it contains short stories, poems, photographs, quizzes and miscellaneous articles about Cork city.
Purchased in November it is put away so that the adults of the household can read and enjoy it on Christmas Night once the children are asleep says Eilish,
A lot of them have it planked away for Christmas Night when they're all gone to bed, to read it.
Families also played cards and made their own entertainment, as there was no television. Catholics also attended religious devotions during the Christmas period.
Rita and Annie’s excuse to leave the house and see what was going on in their neighbourhood was under the pretext of visiting their parish church of Saint Nicholas of Myra on Francis Street for the Forty Hours (a Catholic devotion where continuous prayer is made for forty consecutive hours before the Blessed Sacrament).
It was impossible to escape the vigilant priest standing at the church door who inevitably ushered them in and up to the front pew. Desperate measures were called for, and one of the girls would have to 'throw a sevener', meaning
One would faint, and the other two would carry her out.
This episode of 'Late Late Extra’ was broadcast on 20 December 1986. The presenter is Gay Byrne.
Billed in the RTÉ Guide as an "adjourned sitting" of The Late Late Show, 'Late Late Extra' consisted of extra, unseen content from The Late Late Show. It was first broadcast on 6 October 1985, shortly after The Late Late Show had moved from its Saturday night slot to Friday nights.
