Dying tradition of one day in December

If you or I spent the day walking around Dublin this coming Monday, it would just confirm what many of us already know – a great tradition is in decline.

December 8th was once upon a time the big country day out in Dublin, but I would be sadly confident that this coming Monday in the city will feel like any other day in the lead up to Christmas. Anyone without connections to the rural part of the country would simply have no idea that the day had any particular significance. My eyes and yours might spot some signs, some hints, but they would not be vivid and obvious, and certainly nothing like they were back in the day.

In the past, this week – the first week of December – would see plans for the 8th being made and confirmed in houses all around the region. That planning and the chat would bring both excitement and a practical focus. Who was going, what arrangements needed to be made, who would drop who to the train, who would collect, and yes, how would himself get dinner. For of course, back in the day, 8th December was a chance for the women of our region to get a break from it all. And they certainly deserved it.

Back in that world, Dublin was a very far away place. It was somewhere west of Ireland people went for a match, for your school day out when you were in sixth class, and for the 8th December. There was novelty about a trip to the capital.

On the 8th December in those days, the trains would land into Dublin, as full with country people as those country people were flush with cash, ready to buy all and sundry in the big smoke. At least, that was certainly the way some Dublin retailers liked to think of it.

Whether it was quite as common as we remember is another question. Much of the lead in to Christmas shopping that I can remember in the 1980s was people heading to Northern Ireland. But the day out in Dublin for Christmas shopping on the 8th December was certainly real, and it was a jolly event. For many, it was the start of Christmas and that spirit went with it.

When I came to Dublin back in the mid-1990s, the day was still well observed. You would certainly know it was the 8th December if you took that walk around what Dubs call ‘town’ on that day. There would be ‘bargains’ advertised, with the items displayed chosen with the needs of the country customer in mind. The staff in the shops would certainly know that the country people – they would use a different term to describe us – were in the city.

It has changed, if not utterly. Why is that? Well that list of reasons is so long it would beat any shopping list you could assemble. The recent development of home delivery is just the latest, including the fact that while money might be in greater supply, the other most vital currency, time, isn’t. On top of that, Dublin is no longer a faraway place. People hop in the car and go there all the time now. What is no longer rare inevitably feels less wonderful.

The decline in the 8th December as the country people’s shopping day in Dublin is of course only one aspect of much wider changes. Nowadays, would you be able to tell in any west of Ireland town that 8th December is a holy day of obligation? There are plenty of people nowadays who wouldn’t have the first idea what a holy day of obligation was, never mind observing it.

But a bit like that mass on a holy day, there will be some who cling to tradition. And fair play to them. For those people, this coming Monday the 8th December in Dublin will bring routines and habits as fixed as the northern star.

Henry Street early, Grafton Street later for the few nice bits. Arnotts. Brown Thomas for a gawk. Some café you always liked for the snack, meeting with a Dublin-based relative for lunch. Something hot if you have time, or a fish and chips in Supermac’s at the station if you don’t.

There will be much chat. There will be much talk of prices. But underneath that there will be something else going on for those who honour the tradition. There will be that most important aspect: the social ties that bind. Those social aspects to the 8th December were always as important as the commercial ones.

They were about connections between and within families; the chance to bond with friends, and to share experiences, joys and sorrows. It was as noted a day for a break from the daily grind of work and effort and care that made up so much of life in that time as it was for Christmas shopping. It had, in that sense, an element of respite to it. And it was a chance to simply indulge in a little bit of frippery.

Many old traditions which have passed can only be lamented rather than preserved. But those social aspects are the part of the 8th December tradition that is worth preserving. So in the lead up to Christmas, getting together for a day out of life to renew old friendships and connections is a worthy way to spend time. That of course does not have to take place in Dublin. Any of the towns of our region would welcome the extra trade of your own day out. Going to a town you have not been much in before will freshen up the experience. You can spoil yourself as well as others without crossing the Shannon. And there is of course no need to go to Dublin anymore to get the kind of fancy coffees that the good people of the west now come to expect.

A word of warning though, speaking of coffee. If you are planning to honour the tradition in the traditional way, be sure and get that coffee before you get on the train or you’ll be waiting until your destination. Dear Santa: please bring back the tea trolley!