Dubs’ Crimbo Traditions
Out of good story ideas Patrick Ryan decided takes a playful – or should that be baleful? – look at some popular Yuletide traditions in the capital. Pass the humbugs.
St Michael of Walkinstown
For some reason few of us picture Santa Claus when Michael O’Leary’s name is mentioned. But before Ryanair the entrepreneur saved Christmas, for years. No, really…
Santy invariably finds a way to source even the scarcest toys but often slips up on slipping in the batteries required, sparking tantrums, tears and a refusal to touch the turkey until it’s sorted out- and that’s just from mammy.
In the ‘80s Desperate Dub dads were handed a lifeline through O’Leary’s shop at the Kestrel Corner on the Walkinstown roundabout, happily forking out the sponduliks for a pack of overpriced Ever Readys and a box of Dairy Milk to get back into Herself’s good books in time for dinner.
“In those days, there were only two ways of making money: retail or drink. I didn’t have the money to buy a pub, so I bought a newsagent,”O’Leary said recalling the first year in business
“We decided to open on Christmas Day. We stocked up on an unbelievable quantity of batteries and big boxes of chocolates. By lunchtime, we had been cleaned out. Turnover went up by about five fold. It was one of the greatest days of my life.”
Heartwarming.
Shove It Up Yer…Jumper
Nothing sums up Christmas better than a fat, jovial rogue wearing warm, bright clothing. No, we’re not talking about Santa Claus, or even Uncle Ulick still in that lime green dressing gown at 2pm scoffing the last of the Elsinore Danish butter cookies.
We’re talking about the forced cheerfulness, glaring colours and hideous motifs that define ever dodgy Christmas jumper. It’s enough to turn an Alaskan into a nudist.
Based on sensible, traditional garments popular in Scandinavia the mass popularity of these abominations is down to singers like Andy Williams and Val Doonican donning them for lukewarm Christmas specials in the ‘70s and ‘80s leaving those of us who only had a b&w rented Pye telly counting our blessings.
Gen Z is more likely to slip on a T-shirt or hoodie in festive colours but the idea is the same – look as silly as possible for family photos your kids can use to blackmail you with later.
In Ireland at least we can argue they’re worn for a good cause. Ireland’s Society of St Vincent de Paul is encouraging us all to host a Christmas Jumper Day this December to raise funds for all those in need. It’s still wrong, but now it’s excusable.
A Peak Of D4 Wonkas
The 1970s and 1980s were dark times in Ireland. The Troubles, inflation, sky high unemployment – and it got even worse as the shortest day of the year approached because it meant suffering through yet another broadcast of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on RTÉ, as the nation invokeda similar word to “Wonka” to describe the schedulers at Montrose.
Yes, the flick based on Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel was the Christmas Day movie – for the fifth year in a row.
Ireland gritted our teeth at the all-too-familiar tale of young Charlie Bucket’s search for a golden ticket as he takes control of Willy Wonka’s empire, while we listened to Aunt Nellie snoring like a bull elephant from the depths of the good Parker Knoll armchair after polishing off half a bottle of Blue Nun.
Dahl hated the movie. Kids loved it. It drove parents to despair, cursing their luck to be trapped in two-channel ire-land while a lucky few were able to watch something decent via a dodgy BBC aerial. By the third glass of Paddy whiskey the plot usually got a little better.
It’s Christmas – Lighten Up!
Click! Instant magic. Flipping the switch on the Christmas Lights had long marked the official start of the festive season worldwide and our capital is no different. For 2025 Dublin City Council will turn on the winter lights – notice the distinction as a nod to inclusiveness – at 25 locations in the heart of the capital including the GPO, City Hall, and the Spire.
In the Liberties the smock windmill on Patrick’s Tower at The Digital Hub will be covered in high-tech projections while at the nearby courtyard at Dublin Castle French artists collective SCALE install “Flux” in what DCC promise will offer “a unique, playful and frenetic show in which the choreography intimately dialogues with the music.”
Not to be outdone from early November until the end of January Dublin Zoo bring back their popular Wild Lights event to D8. 13 kaleidoscopic zones highlight elegant flamingos, shimmering peacocks and enchanting red pandas, along with what the zoo says is one of the largest lanterns in Europe.
Even us grumps get goosebumps. Go hiontach ar fad!
Mass Appeal
Numbers attending church on a weekly basis have fallen dramatically in Ireland over the last half century, from a high of about 90 percent in the early 1970s to less than 50 percent in the first decade of the millennium down to about one-in-three today, but that all changes around Christmas time with mass at midnight.
Despite the name modern midnight masses marking the birth of baby Jesus start from 8pm on December 24th. The original service began pretty early too – 430 AD to be exact – at the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome under Pope Sixtus IIIl, and here in Ireland it offers communities a chance to worship together, while meeting neighbours and friends home from abroad. Add in an auld nativity play featuring local children, a bit of carol singing and a cup of tea with a mince pie? Yer laughing.
Toys’ Story
Since it’s first appearance in 1975 as a 30-minute segment at the end of The Late Late Show where Gay Byrne and his team helped parents decide on Christmas gifts after the kids had been put to bed. The Late Late’s Toy Show has since gone from strength to strength, and five decades on is a firm festive tradition, where the little ones reviewing the gifts are the real stars.
Following Uncle Gaybo’s retirement Pat Kenny, Ryan Tubridy and Patrick Kielty inherited the job as host, and the TV special continues to top the TAM ratings, with audience passes now so coveted they make Willy Wonka’s golden tickets look like last season’s soccer stickers.
“The reach of the show is incomparable,” declared tamirelad.ie in 2021. “For the last number years of the show close to three quarters of the available viewing audience have tuned in.”
The site points out that in 2019 #LateLateToyShow trending number one worldwide on Twitter (now X) as the programme was broadcast on RTÉ and the success continues. Last year about 1.6 million of us not only watched the show but also pledged a whopping €5 million for charity.
The F-Words
“Are you brave enough to swim The 40 Foot?” reads the challenge on Fáilte Ireland’s site ireland.com.
A foolhardy few of us are, even on Christmas Day where the ice-cold water of Dublin Bay has drawn swimmers since Napoleon was a boy, and many now take the dip to raise a few bob for charity.
Nobody knows where the area got it’s name. Is it because it’s 40 feet wide? Or 40 feet deep?
We prefer the rumour that it’s because it was popular with infantry from “The 40th” (the 2nd Somersetshires) a “Regiment of Foot” as infantry was called, in Richmond Barracks, Inchicore who manned the Martello Tower.
James Joyce used that fortification to compose great fiction, and in Ulysses Buck Mulligan describes the water as the “scrotumtightening sea”, making saluting after a swim surely impossible.
Once a male-only spot feminists from the Dublin City Women’s Invasion Force swam there in the ‘70s, and in the late ‘80s some women even took a dip in the nip to protest restrictions. In 2014 the Sandycove Bathers Association lifted their ban on female members and today the site is open to everyone.
Santo’s Clause
Visiting a stand-in Santy in a shopping centre grotto is an important rite of passage for all Dublin youngsters.
Writing letters or clicking send on an email to the North Pole is grand but nothing beats meeting up and making your demands while looking him in the eye.
Obviously Santa Claus is pretty busy until December 26th so we’re assured he officially licences lookalikes like Santry Santy, Drimnagh Dave, and Santy Anto, AKA Santo.
That’s who you’ll be meeting.
If visiting after lunchtime please ignore the burps and glazed expression in Santo’s eyes. He’s allowed. It’s not so much that he’s slightly tipsy just bored to death with yet another request for a PlayStation 5, an 8-year-old whinging for an e-scooter, and a Surprise. The only shock here is how he lasted a month.
By January Santo will be back driving a jarvey in the Liberties, mammy will have confiscated the PlayStation because you won’t do homework anymore and you’ll be recovering from a superficial facial injury incurred in the latest TikTok craze.
All part of growing up in Dublin 2026, sonny. Put down those matches.
Peak Panto
Pantomime can trace it’s roots back to the pagan feast of Saturnalia in ancient Rome, and the travelling troupes of performers from the commedia dell’arte, dressed as Harlequin and other characters entertained rich and poor alike in Italy, France and other parts of the continent before arriving in London, eventually reaching our shores.
These pantomimes were in time replaced by fairy stories, spiced up by political jokes, and witty dialogue which have proved a hit with Dubliners since Victorian times.
In more recent years Noel Purcell, Maureen Potter, Twink, June Rodgers, Dustin the Turkey and many others have starred in Dublin pantos at venues around the capital.
This December and January the Gaiety Theatre celebrates over 150 years of pantomime with Beauty and the Beast as the Dublin 2 venue promises to whisk patrons away on a magical and breathtaking journey for a feast for the imagination in this ever-enchanting “Tale As Old As Time…”
Doin’ A Runner
The only reason you should find yourself legging it on Christmas morning is because you’ve grabbed a new iPhone 17 from under a Christmas tree – not your Christmas tree – or because you’re the copper chasing him.
Okay, maybe there’s one other excuse: to raise money for worthy causes, a longtime tradition among do-gooders around the capital over the festive period. Bah, Humbug!
One of the most popular events is the GOAL Mile, which will drag runners, joggers, walkers and the barely conscious to slouch off the couch and bounce into parks citywide, raising funds from friends whose main motivation is to see them suffer.
Since 1977 sports fan John O’Shea has helped vulnerable people in communities in more than 60 countries, with GOALies, including John McEnroe, Pat Cash and Gordon D’Arcy doing Ireland proud on the world stage and stepping up at almost every humanitarian crisis. A grudging nod of appreciation from us.
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