Women’s Christmas: an Irish tradition
Put your feet up, ladies!
January 6th is celebrated in some countries around the world to mark the end of the Christmas festivities. In Ireland, you are supposed to put away all your Christmas decorations on that day, and women are not supposed to lift a finger.
How I found out about Women’s Christmas
I moved from the UK to Ireland and within the first couple of years living in the Emerald Island a friend told me about an Irish tradition that I hadn’t come across before: Women’s Christmas.
Women’s Christmas is celebrated on the 6th of January every year, which marks the end of the Christmas festivities, i.e., the Epiphany or the 12th Day of Christmas. It is a day off for women after working hard over the Christmas holidays preparing meals and decorating their homes. There is a lot of patriarchal baggage related to this festivity.
When my friend told me that she could finally put her feet up on January 6th after hosting numerous events and cooking several meals over the holidays, she said she was relieved that other family members did the cooking, cleaning and tidying up that day.
History of Women's Christmas in Ireland
Women’s Christmas or “Little Christmas” or “Women’s Little Christmas” (in Gaelic Nollaig na mBan) is an Irish tradition, whose origins are unknown, that carried on particularly in rural Ireland for a long time. This custom started dying down by the late 1900s and is now experiencing a resurgence.
National broadcaster RTÉ Radio 1 has an interesting audio archive describing Women’s Christmas that is available to listen to. It features interviews with both known figures and common people in Ireland where they tell the reporters how Women’s Christmas has been celebrated over time.
The Women’s Christmas tradition is still very much alive in towns like Cork and Kerry, and generally speaking in the south west coast and in rural areas of Ireland. During the year women would be running the household, tending the fire, caring for children and any animals, making and mending clothes and doing all the cooking, while the men would be working in the fields. Over Christmas, women would be busy cooking, cleaning and decorating the home with holly branches, making sure everybody else was enjoying the holidays, while not being able to take a break themselves.
Women’s Christmas on 6th January
Women’s Christmas marks a new beginning and it’s a time for women to finally relax after taking care of everyone else and let the men take down to all the Christmas decorations and start cleaning and tidying the whole house for the new year ahead. According to Irish superstitions it is bad luck to keep the Christmas decorations on after January 6th.
After going to Mass women would go to each other’s houses for tea and cake, sometimes a meal of roast goose with a glass of wine. Some even dared going to the pub, which was once the exclusive domain of men. It’s worth noting that in Ireland up until 1958 women on their own were not allowed in pubs, apart from one day in the year for Women’s Christmas, when the men had to do all the cooking, childminding and anything that was needed in the house.
It has been argued that Women’s Christmas is a typically Irish version of International Women’s Day. Ethnographer and folklorist Kevin Danaher briefly described Women’s Christmas as being an Irish custom in his 1972 book The Year in Ireland.
Modern Irish society
Ireland has fast-tracked its progress to catch up with more forward-thinking European countries particularly through European Union accession in 1973, with the introduction of legislation to support gay marriage and women’s rights, among others. Divorce became legal in 1996 and equal marriage was introduced in 2015. Inequality between men and women is even confirmed in the Irish Constitution which states that a woman’s place is in the home.
Irish society is embracing gender equality and men are sharing more of the housework, although more needs to be done. According to the 2022 Equality Index, in Ireland 89% of women do the majority of the housework every day compared to only 48% of men, but there are some signs of improvement as the 2022 equality score for Ireland was 73.4 out of 100, up almost 9 points from 2010. Daily caring responsibilities for children and/or elderly or disabled family members sit with 44% of women and 31% of men.
Also to note, in Ireland only 28% of the Dáil (Parliament) is made of female elected representatives compared to 72% who are male.
How is Women’s Christmas celebrated today in Ireland?
Currently January 6th is an occasion to recognise the impact that women have in society and to celebrate their accomplishments in various fields. It has also turned into a day when companies market directly to women with deals and other promotions.
Brunch, afternoon tea or dinner are all ways to acknowledge Women’s Christmas, but talks and seminars or charity fundraisers are just as popular and are more in tune with modern sensitivities. Charities like Breast Cancer Research proactively encourage women to organise fundraisers on January 6th including swims, concerts, quizzes, coffee mornings or get togethers.
I wonder whether this tradition is likely to survive in years to come or it will lose its significance and relevance as Ireland moves away from old-fashioned (some would say misogynistic) societal models. If we look at other countries around the world and how they mark January 6th, it is only Puerto Rico that has a similar tradition to Ireland, while other places such as Italy and Spain celebrate the symbolic arrival of the Three Wise Men bringing gifts to baby Jesus, bringing the Christmas holidays to an end.
If Ireland keeps marking January 6th primarily as a way to acknowledge the contribution of women to society, then the Women’s Christmas tradition will have a bright future.
Do you like this newsletter? Why not get a subscription for a friend as a gift.