Women’s Christmas - Nollaig na mBan

Under the Sky by Tetsuhiro Wakabayashi

Today, 6th of January, many women across Ireland will pause to celebrate Women’s Christmas. Known in Gaeilge as Nollaig na mBan (“Null-ig na Mawn”), this holiday honours the hard work of Irish women throughout the Christmas season and year.

Traditionally, it was a time when gender roles were reversed. Men took over the household duties while women met each other for tea, a slice of currant cake, a chat and a well-deserved break!

Merry Aunties by Inge Löök

Rituals of Cleansing and Death

Nollaig na mBan is as much a celebration of women’s hard work as it is a reminder that women sacrifice so much that is taken for granted.

A common phrase associated with the holiday is, “Nollaig na mBan, Nollaig gan mhaith”, which essentially means Women’s Christmas is without the good stuff.

This is in reference to the lack of feasting that takes place at this time. Women’s Christmas did not experience the same excess as Christmas Day.

But women took their own spin on this with magic and ritual.

It was said that all the well water in Ireland would turn into wine at midnight on Women’s Christmas. No one was permitted to go out to observe this phenomenon or sample the well water, or they would be met with terrible luck.

A common cleansing ritual involved mothers rubbing the tails of herrings across the eyes of their children to give them immunity against disease. In the epoch of a global pandemic, this symbolism feels potent as Nollaig na mBan honours the ways that women keep their communities safe during times of pestilence.

In another tradition, women made “cakes” of clay or mud, into which were placed candles named after each member of the family. The order in which these candles went out predicted the order in which the family members would die. In a version of this, family members would light their own candles and place them in the window as a symbol of protection. In this way, Nollaig na mBan not only protects the family from death but acknowledges death’s natural place in the cycle of life.

Art by Jackie Morris

Reclaiming Rest

Of course, Irish women - women everywhere - deserve more than one day of rest. But Nollaig na mBan shouldn’t be seen as a singular day when women are given the day off. Rather, it is a jumping-off point that we can reclaim and reimagine for the times we are in.

Rest looks different to different bodies. For me, rest can mean:

• Acceptance. When I can let go and invite peace into my body - even momentarily.

• Rest is giving myself permission to catch my breath.

• Rest is my presence. When I have not left my body to travel back into the mullings of the past or unknowns of the future.

• Rest is feeling alive to my senses. Sight. Smell. Sound. Taste. Touch.

• Rest is my boundaries. Embodying the structures that allow me to surrender. To trust.

• Rest is when I enter a mythical portal of story or art. When I am lost in absorption.

• Rest is plugging into our Great Mother, this land, Ériu, and feeling her charge.

And so, as we celebrate this tradition, asking your body now:

Body- what does rest look like for me?

Giving yourself permission to follow through on the impulse today and honour your body’s innate wisdom.

Rest love, rest.

Skywatcher by Susan Seddon Boulet

In the Spirit of Women

In the spirit of celebrating women’s contribution, I wish to share the work of a few close friends of mine in Ireland who are working to reclaim and reimagine the mythos of this land through their own unique expression.

• The magical midwife Sarah Richardson who is working to revive our Bean Ghlúine (‘Woman of the Knees’), the Irish midwife, and Bean Chaointe (‘Crying/Keening Woman’) traditions, and has just launched her book WOMAN.

• The enchanting Regina de Búrca who took on the immense feat of translating the Rider Waite Tarot to Gaeilge, our native tongue and has undertaken research into the correlation between the tarot and the Creideamh Sí, the ‘Fairy Faith’.

• The Bean Feasa Aisling Jackson - our holistic menstrual educator in the west of Ireland who has a talent for uncovering womb wisdom in the Irish language.

• The courageous Dee Mulrooney - a phenomenal mythopoetic Irish artist who in her own words has discovered the “joy of playing with taboos and visions of female identity that would until all too recently have seen her locked away.”

• The trailblazing Nadine McCarthy whose fusion of radical leadership with the ancient wisdom of this land is creating a new global vision for Ireland.

Tailtiu by Dee Mulrooney

A Ritual of the Hearth

Photo: Dúchas

The hearth has been weaving itself as a theme through my work with women these past weeks. 

Inspired by this, I’ve been reflecting on how the chair closest to the hearth was always coveted in Ireland and is symbolic of invitation and of the hospitality we are known for. 

Visitors to the homestead would be given the seat closest to the fire to warm their chilly bones. The seanchaí (‘bearer of old lore’), the traditional storyteller would regale stories and indeed sleep by the hearth. 

Some kitchens had a Cailleach or hag’s bed beside the hearth for the old woman of the house. 

At Samhain and all souls, the fire would be tended to before bed, allowed to burn along with candles and chairs left out for the souls of returning ancestors who had passed before us.

Cottage Interior by Gerard Dillon, 1952

And so, a few weeks ago on a Sunday, I decided to light a fire and leave a chair beside the hearth sensing into who I would love to offer this traditionally coveted place.

As a goddess deeply associated with protection of the homestead and sacred fire, Goddess Brigid felt like my woman.

As I offered her this special place by my hearth, and within my pulsing heart, which felt reciprocal, I asked of my mythical ancestor, a desire writing it down on a scroll of paper and leaving it on her chair.

My desire was simple. My youngest son was sick, my husband was away for a few days, and I had my other beautiful boy to tend to as well. That week I had clients, I had big creative plans for my work, all the to-do lists, personal meet-ups… so, what was going to give?

How was I going to do everything? Care for my wee man who I knew at this point would be at home for a few days, do the school runs with my other fella with a sick child in tow, organise a household, run a business etc. etc.

The answer was I was not going to do everything.

And so, I tuned into how I could centre pleasure amidst what seemed like a foreboding contraction. I asked Brigid for “healing for Barra” my son and for “an enrichment of time”. That even with limited time for myself in the days ahead, I could expand this time and invite in more depth.

Before I went to bed, I rested in the darkness that enveloped the glowing hearth.

The following morning when I came down the stairs to the chair, it felt like Christmas morning. Like wild magic was brewing.

And sure enough, I experienced an enrichment of time in the days ahead. So instead of fulfilling all of the plans I had, I relinquished and when the wee man was up to it, spent time on sacred land, visiting the ancestors at Dowth or Dubad, which means ‘darkness’ in Gaeilge, a 5,000-year-old sacred home to two passage graves, two tomb wombs.

There is an old Irish proverb:

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin.

‘There is no hearth, like your own hearth.’

Who will you be leaving a chair out for at your hearth?

If you don’t have a fireside hearth, this simple ritual can be done with a chair and candle, blown out before rest.

Sending love from my hearth to yours.❤️‍🔥