Home for Christmas?

By Michael Gill

Most of us have enjoyed settling in and watching a feel good ‘Home for Christmas’ movie on the television.

Old and new films follow the path of the intrepid hero who overcomes all the seemingly insurmountable obstacles and just manages to get home in time for the Christmas celebrations.
For a lot of Irish emigrants, the Christmas trip home was one of the most important events in the calendar.

For others, particularly in the hungry 1950s and 1960s getting home was not always possible for many.
Sheer distance prevented our ‘Wild Geese’ from returning from the USA, Australia and a host of other places. Even those who lived in England often found the trip home a daunting one.

It was not just the cost of travel: The sheer difficulty of the trip defeated many because in those days there were no cheap flights or regional airports and most of the emigrants did not own motor vehicles.
A long train trip to Holyhead or Liverpool would be followed by an uncomfortable crossing on the Mail or Cattle Boat and if a relative couldn’t supply a lift from Dublin another long journey lay ahead for many people.
Sadly, some never made it home at all. Their pain was often dulled if they settled down and found a partner but for the many single people their longing for home was always intensified at Christmas time.

For those who stayed in the UK, Irish owned pubs and dance halls provided places of refuge along with their local Catholic Churches.

The pubs were great places until Christmas Eve had passed but many lonely souls went to Mass on Christmas Day and then faced the prospect of no Christmas Dinner with their families.
If the pubs were open at all on Christmas Day, they were cheerless places and would remain so until the New Year. John Kerr wrote the following poignant poem about the predicament.

In a Little Pub in London

In a little pub in London, Moriarity drank his beer,
And recited wondrous stories of his exploits far and near.
“Sing an Irish song” said Kelly, “best of order one and all”
Moriarity sang for them ‘The Hills of Donegal’

There was cheering at the finish, they called “Encore, Encore.”
Moriarity said “Listen lads, I can’t sing anymore.”
He stood there sad and silent and gazed into his beer
And in his eyes there glistened the starting of a tear.

“Are you going home for Christmas?” the kindly Barmaid said.
But Moriarity fixed his gaze on her and slowly shook his head.
“Sure I haven’t been to Ireland now for twenty years or more
My mother would hardly know me if I walked up to the door.

“I was born” said Moriarity “on an Island off the West
The last place God created and the first one that he blessed.
My father, God be good to him was drowned one woeful night,
My Mother left all lonesome and myself to work and fight.”

“So with Donald Rua McCarthy and Michael Og O’Shea,
We came across to England to earn an honest pay,
I told my dear old mother I’d soon be home again,
But the curse of drink came o’er me and enslaved me in its chain.

Sure I haven’t been to Ireland now for twenty years or more,
But I know she’s still there waiting for my footsteps at the door”
Then someone started singing; ‘See amid the Winter’s Snow’
It was like an old bell ringing far away and long ago.

Moriarity stood there silent and pushed his glass away.
And made a solemn promise he’d go home for Christmas Day
So he scraped up every penny he could get into his hand,
And coming up to Christmas, he sailed for Ireland.

His heart was filled with gladness and he felt content at last.
As the train rolled through the Midlands and brought him to the West
In the village of Kinsheelan that night upon the shore,
Far across the deep blue waters he saw his Island home once more

The stars they shone so brightly, now they glistened like a dome,
On that little whitewashed cottage that was Moriarity’s home.
“Tis a grand night for the sailing” said the boatman, Thomas Bawn,
But Moriarity didn’t know him, he’d been a way too long.

As he climbed into the baidin, the boatman heard him say:
“Thank God, Thank God in Heaven I’ll be home for Christmas Day.”

In a little room in London, in Moriarity’s poor abode
On a table in the hallway a message lay untold
And in it read: “Dear Danny, your poor Mother has passed away,
She’ll be buried in Kinsheelan after Mass on Christmas Day.”

 

John Kerr was a singer from Coolback, Fanad in County Donegal.
He was a cobbler by trade but enjoyed considerable success as Lead Singer with the Classic Showband throughout the 1960’s before embarking on a successful solo career having No. 1 Chart hits with ‘The Three Leaf Shamrock’ and ‘Mulroy Bay’

He wrote and recorded this evocative poem in 1981and it has since been performed by Sean Wilson.
‘Kinsheelan’ is of course a fictional place but in many ways, this makes the poem accessible to all exiles.

Read more memories of Christmas in Old Ireland in this year’s Christmas Annual