OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Nobler than kings, the King who was born in Bethlehem



    Nobler than kings,
    the King who was born in Bethlehem was a royal birth;
    every prophet had foretold for a long time
    that he would be born in the reign of Octavian.
    Saltair na Rann, 10th century.


    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Christmas Eve in Ireland

    Frontispiece to The Irish Christmas (Dublin, 1917).

    Today is Christmas Eve and as a child I remember hearing that on this night we should leave a light shining in the front window of the house. This was to act as a signal that even if there was ‘no room at the inn’ elsewhere, Saint Joseph and Our Blessed Lady would find shelter with us. Katharine Tynan in her poem ‘Christmas Eve in Ireland’ alludes to this tradition and also to the fact that people not only displayed lights but kept their doors unlocked. Obviously it was an earlier and more innocent age! I’ve also published a poem called Saint Brigid’s Lullabies at my other site Trias Thaumaturga today, you can read it here.

    CHRISTMAS EVE IN IRELAND
    NOT a cabin in the Glen shuts its door to-night,
    Lest the travellers abroad knock in vain and pass,
    Just a humble gentleman and a lady bright
    And she to be riding on an ass.
    Grief is on her goodman, that the inns deny
    Shelter to his dearest Dear in her hour of need;
    That her Babe of royal birth, starriest, most high,
    Has not where to lay His head.
    Must they turn in sadness to the cattle byre
    And the kind beasts once again shake the bed for
    Him?
    Not a cabin in the Glen but heaps wood on the fire
    And keeps its lamps a-trim.
    Now the woman makes the bed, smooths the linen
    sheet,
    Spreads the blanket, soft and white, that her
    own hands spun.
    Whisht! is that the ass that comes, on his four
    little feet,
    Carrying the Holy One ?
    Nay, ’twas but the wind and rain, the sand on the
    floor.
    A bitter night, yea, cruel, for folk to be abroad.
    And she, not fit for hardship, outside a fast-closed
    door,
    And her Son the Son of God!
    Is it the moon that’s turning the dark world to
    bright ?
    Is it some wonderful dawning in the night and
    cold ?
    Whisht! did you see a shining One and Him to
    be clad in light
    And the wings and head of Him gold ?
    Who are then those people, hurrying, hasting,
    those,
    And they all looking up in the sky this night of
    wondrous things ?
    Oh, those I think be shepherdmen, and they that
    follow close
    I think by their look be kings.
    Not a cabin in the Glen shuts the door till day,
    Lest the heavenly travellers come, knock again
    in vain.
    All the night the dulcimers, flutes, and hautboys
    play,
    And the angels walk with men.
    The Flower of Peace – A Collection of the Devotional Poetry of Katharine Tynan, 11-12.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Medieval Wisdom: Five Hateful Things

    I picked up a copy of a book of medieval Anglo-Irish poetry recently in a charity shop. The Kildare Poems, as the collection is known, show a strong Franciscan influence. Their author is unknown, although there is mention of a Friar Michael of Kildare as the author of one of them. The collection is preserved in the British Library Manuscript, Harley 913, and was written in Ireland in the early fourteenth century. The CELT project have made the original texts available online, although not the translations or the author’s introduction. I rather liked this pithy example of medieval wisdom:

    Five Hateful Things
    A bishop without doctrine,
    a king without judgment,
    an imprudent young man,
    a foolish old man,
    a woman without shame –
    I swear by the King of heaven,
    those are five hateful things.
    Here is the original:
    [MS fol 6v]
    Bissop lorles,
    Kyng redeles,
    Yung man rechles,
    Old man witles,
    Womman ssamles—
    I swer bi heuen Kyng,
    Thos beth fiue lither thing.
    A.M. Lucas, ed. Anglo-Irish poems of the Middle Ages, (Dublin, 1995), 56-57.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.