Candles in the windows, Wren Boys at the door and old Christmas traditions from Bandon’s past

Long before electric Christmas lights illuminated Bandon, the glow of candles shone from windows across the town and surrounding countryside.

Christmas was a special time in Bandon then, just as it is today — but some of the customs were very different.

Thanks to stories collected from local people in the 1930s and preserved in Ireland’s Dúchas Schools’ Folklore Collection, we can catch a wonderful glimpse of Christmas as earlier generations around Bandon remembered it.

The Christmas Candle

One of the most important traditions was the Christmas candle.

A story collected at St Patrick’s School in Bandon tells us that the candle was lit on Christmas Eve and allowed to burn throughout the night.

The youngest person in the household was given the honour of lighting it, after blessing themselves and sprinkling holy water.

Nearby in Baurleigh, people remembered candles being placed in every window of the house.

There, however, tradition said that the eldest member of the household lit the Christmas candle.

Even within a few miles, every community — and perhaps every family — could have its own version of a Christmas tradition.

The Door Was Left Open

One of the loveliest traditions comes from the countryside around Bandon.

At Mawbeg, people remembered a time when the door was left open on Christmas night so that anyone who had no home could come inside and rest.

Hay was placed outside the door.

Inside, a cup, plate and food were left on the table, while the Christmas candle burned through the night.

It is a beautiful image of an old Bandon Christmas: a light in the darkness, food on the table and an open door for the stranger.

Two Christmas Eve Suppers

Christmas Eve had its own food traditions.

An account collected in Bandon says that instead of an ordinary dinner, people once ate two suppers, with fish forming part of the Christmas Eve meal.

Around Mawbeg there was a memory of people boiling fish and potatoes at six o’clock and again at midnight.

Christmas Eve was traditionally a day of abstinence from meat, which may explain the importance of fish in these memories.

A Christmas Cake Hidden in the Ashes

Perhaps the most unusual Christmas food tradition comes from Ballinadee.

A special Christmas cake was prepared a week or more before Christmas. It might contain currants and, once baked, was carefully wrapped in paper.

Then came the unusual part.

The cake was kept in the ashes beside the fire until Christmas night, when it was brought out and cut for the Christmas supper.

Another Bandon account remembers an even older custom in which a Christmas cake was struck three times against the door.

Why three times?

The collector doesn’t tell us.

Perhaps by the time the story was written down, even the people of Bandon had forgotten.

Christmas Day at Home

Christmas Day itself was very much a family occasion.

An account from Baurleigh remembers turkey or goose and plum pudding being served where families could afford them.

But it also records something wonderfully simple:

Everyone stayed at home.

After the excitement and preparations of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day belonged to the household.

That changed on the following morning.

Here Come the Wren Boys

St Stephen’s Day brought the Wren Boys.

Groups travelled from house to house as part of the old tradition of “going on the Wren”, bringing songs, rhymes, music and plenty of noise to the days after Christmas.

For generations of Bandon people, the arrival of the Wren Boys must have been as much a part of Christmas as the candle in the window or the Christmas dinner.

When Water Turned to Wine

Not every Bandon Christmas tradition was quite so cheerful.

There was magic — and a little danger — associated with Little Christmas on 6 January.

A belief recorded by a Bandon schoolchild claimed that at a particular time that night, ordinary water would turn into wine.

But there was a catch.

Anyone who deliberately stayed awake to witness the miracle and drink the wine was said to die.

Similar stories were told elsewhere in Ireland, sometimes involving curious people who decided to put the old belief to the test.

Perhaps it was one Christmas mystery best left unexplored.

Christmas Lights Across Bandon

Almost a century has passed since Bandon schoolchildren wrote these memories into their copybooks.

Christmas in the town has changed enormously.

Yet there is something familiar in the stories they preserved.

Families still come together. Doors open to friends and neighbours. Special food is prepared. Children wait excitedly for Christmas morning. And once again, as darkness falls in December, lights shine from windows throughout Bandon.

The candles may have become Christmas lights, and many of the old customs have disappeared, but the idea behind them remains remarkably familiar.

Christmas is about home, family, community and welcoming others.

So when the Christmas lights come on in Bandon this year, spare a thought for the generations who celebrated here before us — for the Christmas candle burning through the night, the cake waiting beside the fire, the Wren Boys approaching the door and the mysterious water nobody dared watch on Little Christmas.

From Christmases past to Christmas today, Nollaig Shona ó Dhroichead na Bandan — Happy Christmas from Bandon.

Our Christmas Stories

These traditions come from memories recorded by schoolchildren in Bandon and neighbouring communities during the 1930s as part of the Schools’ Folklore Collection, now preserved by the National Folklore Collection and available through Dúchas.ie.

Local sources include St Patrick’s School, Bandon; Baurleigh; Mawbeg; and Ballinadee.

The accounts are individual memories of local customs and beliefs rather than evidence that every Bandon household followed the same traditions.