First Person: Christmas carols like the Wexford Carol can be a conduit for joy and celebration in the darkest of times
Christmas carols are themed of the birth of Christ. It is said that they owe their beginnings to St Francis of Assisi, who used them to describe to his congregations the joy of the birth of Christ (Francis is also credited with popularising Christmas nativity scenes). They're usually based on medieval chord patterns, which gives them a distinctive archaic sound from another age. In ancient times, long before Christianity, humans noted the winter solstice and celebrated in mid-winter despite it being the darkest time of the year.
It was a dark December morning some years ago, when I heard the radio presenter announce she was about to play the Wexford Carol, and my interest was piqued by the Irish reference in the title. It was sung by a female vocalist with sparse accompaniment, and I was captured in that moment by the haunting melody, melancholic but with hopeful religious lyrics. It gave me focus as I sat in my kitchen, reflected in the black glass of the window in 'the very dead of winter’.
I was grieving death and loss, but was determined to put on a good show for my children, head down, ticking off lists, calculator at hand, and thoroughly dreading the Christmas season to come. Hearing the Wexford Carol that morning gave me a brief respite as I stopped to think. As it turned out, I got a solace from that moment to steel me both for the festivities and the difficult year to come.
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Anúna perform The Wexford Carol
Some carols are among the oldest musical compositions still sung. At first listen, the Wexford Carol sounds reliably old and medieval in its construction. Its verses conventionally and joyfully recount the Christmas story from the birth of Jesus to the shepherds and Magi’s visitation to the manger.
But despite its ‘old’ sound, it was only re-discovered relatively recently, around 1911 by the historian and composer William Henry Grattan Flood in the Enniscorthy area of Co. Wexford. While it may be assumed to be 15th century or even older, its exact vintage is uncertain without hard evidence. Flood was brought by Fr Patrick Cummins from St Aidan's Cathedral in Enniscorthy, to hear the air being sung by an elderly couple. It was initially known as the Enniscorthy Carol before it spread from the local area.
A passionate advocate of Irish history and musical heritage, Flood wrote in his A History of Irish Music that Christmas carols were popular in Ireland with the Anglo Irish from the 14th century, and may have been adaptations of secular songs. It has been noted that the melody of the Wexford Carol has a unique Irish flavour "with a rise in the intonation that make us sound particularly Irish".
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From RTÉ Lyric FM's Culture File, The Wexford Carol is an uncanny sonic apparatus that's snared performers from Julie Andrews to Yo-Yo Ma - and even a few Irish musicians
A combination of formal church and folk elements, I can picture it to have the skeletal frame of an Irish folk song when sung unaccompanied, and I even imagine hearing the faint strain of a mournful keen in its air. How typical that county Wexford brought it to us, the southeast of the country being the historic gateway for foreign invaders like Vikings and Anglo Normans bringing their cultures to intermingle with our own.
But with no proof, it's fanciful to think of such a thing as the Wexford Carol reflecting a peaceful coming together of such diverse cultures at Christmas to form a hybrid cultural piece. After all, isn’t that what Christmas is about, peace and goodwill and hope for a better future ahead? That was why hearing the Wexford Carol that morning resonated with me: the joyful hope, with the hook of Irish culture to catch me on that dark morning. It moved me enough to fully focus on the moment, to accept and surrender to grief that is a necessary step in moving on from it.
That year I was in dread of the Christmas to come, the first after the death of my mother in a long year of losses. The first Christmas without your parents, whatever age you may be, is one where your very existence comes into sharp focus, and you calculate the years you may have left in life. The realisation that you are the next generation to age only fully comes to those who have lost both parents, and it is an existential loneliness made harder at a time of being reminded of happy times past.
From A Murray Christmas, Crux Vocal Ensemble perform A Wexford Carol
Christmas is for frivolity and festivity, and not a time for grieving and thinking deep existential thoughts. It is a time that those who are grieving dread, as they are forcibly corralled into that brightly lit tunnel that is the modern Christmas season. In the rush for others to party, the grieving tend not to want to be a burden, yet can dread getting caught up in the celebrations.
Despite my attempts, I've never found the version I heard on the radio, but this was no bad thing. Instead, I replayed the Wexford Carol in my head all over that Christmas, and got comfort from the distraction of it. I returned to that earworm often during the course of the year ahead. In a way, it provided the soundtrack to my personal grieving. Grief is that thing that you can’t avoid and must go through, much like Christmas.
Christmas carols can be a conduit for joy and celebration in the darkest of times. I came to a realisation it would pass and I could cope, all crystalised in the moment of listening to the Wexford Carol, and I emerged from that Christmas with a newfound strength and resilience that I never imagined I could possess.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
