December, 2019
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Santa and Driving Out the Hunger in Glenmore
Christmas
To date 19 of Danny Dowling’s notebooks have been transcribed. Within the 19 transcribed notebooks there is very little recorded regarding Christmas or New Year’s in Glenmore during earlier times. However, in 1969 Danny Dowling interviewed Nicholas Forristal (1888-1979) of The Mill, Graiguenakill, Glenmore. Nicholas Forristal is usually referred to by Danny as “Nicky the Miller.” Nicky informed Danny that in his childhood there was no Santa Clause. Children before the First World War in Glenmore did not believe in Santa and he “did not come around.”
During Nicky’s youth the emphasis at Christmas was on “plenty of grub, steak and beef.” The grocers with whom people dealt gave big hampers to their customers at Christmas. Nicky recalled that his uncle, Billy Forristal of Ballyverneen, Glenmore, one Christmas received ½ a gallon of whiskey as a Christmas gift from Stevenson’s the Grocer’s in North St., New Ross, where Mace was located in 1969.
New Year’s
In a 1958 interview Nicky the Miller discussed a custom entitled “driving away the hunger,” which was performed on New Year’s Eve. He noted that it was practiced all over the parish of Glenmore during his youth and other parishes in “his father’s time.” Nicky’s father was Patrick Forristal, (1849-1931) of The Mill, Graiguenakill, Glenmore. Nicky’s father was born during the Famine. Paddy Forristal performed this custom each New Year’s Eve during Nicky’s youth.
The procedure for “driving away the hunger” began with a griddle of oaten bread being baked on the fire. The cake when baked was divided into 4 pieces. The head of the house took one portion in his hand, stood up from the table and walked to the front door, and as he struck the back of the door with the bread he recited the following verse three times:
Fógramég, Fógraméy, Gortamac,
Anoct Go Blén Anoct
Agus Anoct Féinye
Ó Faireac Go Deíreac
Igír na Torcac
Na Gort Gan Bolenstóce
[Update 25 November 2023–Thanks to Trish Bradfield for sending a translation for this old Irish verse. “Tell me, tell them, about the Famine tonight, and all year from my heart that no hunger goes untold, from here on in.”]
After each time the verse was recited everyone in the house would stand up and give a shout. After completion of ceremony, all in the house would get bit of the lump of bread used for striking the door. All in the house would then sit down and eat the bread with a jug of milk.
It was said that at driving away the hunger ceremonies in the Rower area the hunger was driven to Woodstock.
On behalf of Glenmore-History.com we wish you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year with plenty of “good grub!”
The drawing of Santa above was done by Thomas Nast in 1881 and entitled “Merry Old Santa Claus.”
Dr. Kathleen Moore Walsh