An Advent Calendar with Patrick Comerford: 12, 11 December 2025

Advent wreaths in Market Square and in Church Street, Stony Stratford (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

We are half-way through Advent this year and the week began with the Second Sunday of Advent (Advent II, 7 December 2025). At noon each day this Advent, I am offering one image as part of my ‘Advent Calendar’ for 2025, and one Advent or Christmas carol, hymn or song.

The Christmas cracker I pulled at lunch in Wolverton yesterday with clerical colleagues in the Milton Keynes Deanery included this one-liner: ‘Why is it getting harder to buy Christmas calendars? It’s because their days are numbered.’

My image for my Advent Calendar today is a collage of Advent Wreaths on my neighbours’ houses on Church Street and in Market Square in Stony Stratford.

My choice of an Advent hymn or carol yesterday was the ‘Sussex Carol’, one of the carols or hymns the Choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church is rehearsing in Stony Stratford this Advent. So today I have chosen the ‘Wexford Carol’, which has similar words, a similar tune, and a parallel story.

‘The Wexford Carol’ is said to date from the 12th century. It is one of the oldest-known Irish carols and is also one of the oldest surviving Christmas carols in the European tradition. Many musicians and listeners find this carol is unique and believe it has a distinctly Irish character.

The carol is thought to have originated in Co Wexford, but there are many traditions about this poem and song. For many years it was said that only men should sing it, although since it gained a new popularity from the 1990s on, many popular female artists have also recorded it since it gained a new popularity from the 1990s onward.

The Wexford Carol found new attention in the early 20th century due to the work of Dr William Henry Grattan Flood (1857-1928), who was the organist and musical director at Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, and the author of The History of the Diocese of Ferns (1916). According to the Revd Joseph Ranson, in a paper in The Past (1949), this carol was discovered by Grattan Flood in Co Wexford. He transcribed the carol from a local singer, and it was published in 1928, the year of his death, as No 14 in the Oxford Book of Carols, edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The carol was quickly included in collections of carols and Christmas poems around the world. It is sometimes known as the ‘Enniscorthy Carol,’ and was recorded under that title by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on a Christmas recording in 1997. It is also known by its first verse, ‘Good people all this Christmas time.’

The New Oxford Book Of Carols, in a detailed footnote, says: Grattan-Flood ‘lived in Enniscorthy from 1895 until his death, and […] took down the words and tune from a local singer; after revising the text, he sent the carol to the editors of The Oxford Book of Carols, who printed it as the ‘Wexford Carol’.’ However, the note continues with more detail showing the text to be English in origin, and verses 1, 2, 4, are 5 are from William Henry Shawcross’s Old Castleton Christmas Carols. Certainly, the Irish-language version seems to be a translation from English, as it is unlikely that any carol was written in Irish in English-speaking Co Wexford.

The Wexford Carol is often associated with the Kilmore Carols from Kilmore, Co Wexford, and it is often attributed to Bishop Luke Wadding of Ferns and his collection of carols, first published in Ghent in 1684. Wadding’s little book had the lengthy title: A small garland of pious and godly songs composed by a devout man, for the solace of his friends and neighbours in their afflictions. The sweet and the sower, the nettle and the flower, the thorne and the rose, this garland compose.

Luke Wadding (not to be confused with his kinsman, the 17th-century Franciscan theologian from Waterford of the same name), whose family came from Ballycogley Castle, Co Wexford, was the Catholic bishop of Ferns, and lived in Wexford town. His book contains some religious ‘posies’ or poems written for the disinherited gentry of Co Wexford as well as 11 Christmas songs, two of which are sung to this day in Kilmore.

A similar carol is found in Revd William Devereux’s A New Garland Containing Songs for Christmas (1728). Father William Devereux (1696-1771), from Tacumshane, was Parish Priest of Drinagh, near Wexford, in 1730-1771, and wrote several carols.

The Wexford Carol is sometimes confused too with ‘The Sussex Carol,’ also referred to by its first line: ‘On Christmas night all Christians sing’, which I discussed in my ‘Advent Calendar’ series yesterday.

Kilmore Quay … ‘The Wexford Carol’ is often associated with the Kilmore Carols from Kilmore, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Wexford Carol

Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town.
But mark how all things came to pass;
From every door repelled alas!
As long foretold, their refuge all
Was but an humble ox’s stall.

There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star,
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay,
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah was,
They humbly cast them at his feet,
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear,
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go,” the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find, this happy morn,
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”

With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went the Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by his side the Virgin Maid,
As long foretold, there was a blessed Messiah born.

‘The Wexford Carol’ and the mystery surrounding some old and popular Christmas carols

Kilmore Quay … ‘The Wexford Carol’ is often associated with the Kilmore Carols from Kilmore, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

‘The Wexford Carol’ is said to date from the 12th century. It is one of the oldest Irish carols and is also one of the oldest surviving Christmas carols in the European tradition. Many musicians and listeners find this carol is unique and believe it has a distinctly Irish character.

The carol is thought to have originated in County Wexford, but there are many traditions about this poem and song. For many years it was said that only men should sing it, although since it gained a new popularity from the 1990s on, many popular female artists have also recorded it since it gained a new popularity from the 1990s onward.

The Wexford Carol found new attention in the early 20th century due to the work of Dr William Henry Grattan Flood (1857-1928), who was the organist and musical director at Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, and the author of The History of the Diocese of Ferns (1916). According to Revd Joseph Ranson, in a paper in The Past (1949), this carol was discovered by Grattan Flood in County Wexford. He transcribed the carol from a local singer, and it was published in 1928, the year of his death, as No. 14 in the Oxford Book of Carols, edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The carol was quickly included in collections of carols and Christmas poems around the world. It is sometimes known as the ‘Enniscorthy Carol,’ and was recorded under that title by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on a Christmas recording in 1997. It is also known by its first verse, ‘Good people all this Christmas time.’

The New Oxford Book Of Carols, in a detailed footnote, says: Grattan-Flood ‘lived in Enniscorthy from 1895 until his death, and […] took down the words and tune from a local singer; after revising the text, he sent the carol to the editors of The Oxford Book of Carols, who printed it as the ‘Wexford Carol’.’ However, the note continues with more detail showing the text to be English in origin, and verses 1, 2, 4, are 5 are from William Henry Shawcross’s Old Castleton Christmas Carols. Certainly, the Irish-language version seems to be a translation from English, as it is unlikely that any carol was written in Irish in English-speaking County Wexford.

The Wexford Carol is often associated with the Kilmore Carols from Kilmore, Co. Wexford, and it is often attributed to Bishop Luke Waddinge of Ferns and his collection of carols, first published in Ghent in 1684 and discussed by Ciarán Mac Murcaidh in the previous article. Waddinge’s little book had the lengthy title: A small garland of pious and godly songs composed by a devout man, for the solace of his friends and neighbours in their afflictions. The sweet and the sower, the nettle and the flower, the thorne and the rose, this garland compose.

Luke Waddinge (not to be confused with his kinsman, the seventeenth-century Franciscan theologian from Waterford of the same name), whose family came from Ballycogley Castle, Co. Wexford, was the Catholic bishop of Ferns (1683-92), and lived in Wexford town while holding that office. His book contains some religious ‘posies’ or poems written for the disinherited gentry of County Wexford as well as eleven Christmas songs, two of which are sung to this day in Kilmore.

A similar carol is found in Revd William Devereux’s A New Garland Containing Songs for Christmas (1728). Father William Devereux (1696-1771), from Tacumshane, was Parish Priest of Drinagh, near Wexford, in 1730-71, and wrote several carols.

The Wexford Carol is sometimes confused too with ‘The Sussex Carol,’ also referred to by its first line: ‘On Christmas night all Christians sing.’ It is said the words of this carol were first published by Bishop Luke Waddinge in A small garland (1684), but it is not clear whether he wrote the song or that he was recording an earlier composition. Edward Darling and Donald Davison, in their Companion to Church Hymnal, say the words are from a traditional English source, that they were adapted by Luke Waddinge, and that they were reintroduced to English use through later editions of Waddinge’s carols, published in London in the early 18th century, subsequently undergoing considerable modification.

Both the text and the tune to which it is now sung were discovered and written down quite independently by Cecil Sharp in Buckland, Gloucestershire, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heard it being sung by a Harriet Verrall of Monk’s Gate, near Horsham, Sussex – hence its name, ‘The Sussex Carol.’ Vaughan Williams published the tune to which it is generally sung today in 1919. Several years earlier, he included the carol in his Fantasia on Christmas carols, first performed at the Three Carols Festival in Hereford Cathedral in 1912.

The Sussex Carol often features in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the Chapel of the King’s College, Cambridge, on Christmas Eve and broadcast around the world by the BBC. A version of the ‘Sussex Carol’ also appears in the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, 2004) as Hymn No 176.

The Wexford Carol

Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town.
But mark how all things came to pass;
From every door repelled alas!
As long foretold, their refuge all
Was but an humble ox’s stall.

There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star,
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay,
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah was,
They humbly cast them at his feet,
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear,
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go,” the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find, this happy morn,
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”

With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went the Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by his side the Virgin Maid,
As long foretold, there was a blessed Messiah born.

The Sussex Carol, by Ralph Vaughan Williams:

On Christmas night all Christians sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
News of great joy, news of great mirth,
News of our merciful King’s birth.

Then why should men on earth be so sad,
Since our Redeemer made us glad,
When from our sin he set us free,
All for to gain our liberty?

When sin departs before His grace,
Then life and health come in its place.
Angels and men with joy may sing
All for to see the new-born King.

All out of darkness we have light,
Which made the angels sing this night:
“Glory to God and peace to men,
Now and for evermore, Amen!”

Sources and Further Reading:

Edward Darling, Donald Davison (eds), Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin, 2005).

Hugh Keyte, Andrew Parrott (eds), The New Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford, 1992).

‘The ‘Wexford Carol’ and the mystery surrounding some old and popular Christmas carols’ is published in Christmas and the Irish: a miscellany, ed Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2023, 403 pp, €25, ISBN: 978-1-913934-93-4), pp 72-77, with the photograph of Kilmore Quay on p 71.

The list of contributors includes this note on p 400:

Patrick Comerford is an Anlican priest living in retirement near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. He is a former adjunct assistant professor in Trinity College Dublin

‘Christmas and the Irish: a miscellany’ was launched in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, on 30 November 2023

Carols and Hymns for Christmas (6): ‘The Wexford Carol’

Winter on the quays in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for this Christmas season, I am thinking about an appropriate carol or hymn each morning. Today (30 December 2014), I have chosen ‘The Wexford Carol,’ which I spoke about two years ago on RTE Radio 1 on Christmas Day. I was interviewed by Aoife Nic Cormaic in 2012 for that programme, which traced the history of the famous carol and talked to musicians and listeners about what makes it special and what gives it its distinctly Irish character.

‘The Wexford Carol’ is said to date from the 12th century and is one of the oldest Irish carols and one of the oldest surviving Christmas carols in the European tradition.

The carol is thought to have originated in Co Wexford, but there are many traditions about this poem and song, and for many years it was said that only men should sing it. However, since it gained a new popularity from the 1990s, many female artists have also recorded ‘The Wexford Carol.’

Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford ... the organist, Dr William Grattan Flood (1857-1928), claimed to have discovered ‘The Wexford Carol’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘The Wexford Carol’ achieved a new popularity because of the work of Dr William Henry Grattan Flood (1857-1928), who was the organist and musical director at Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, and the author of The History of the Diocese of Ferns (1916). According to the Revd Joseph Ranson, in a paper in The Past (1949), this carol was discovered by Dr Grattan Flood in Co Wexford. He transcribed the carol from a local singer, and it was published in 1928, the year of his death, as No 14 in the Oxford Book of Carols, edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The carol was quickly included in collections of carols and Christmas poems around the world, and is sometimes known as the Enniscorthy Carol, and was recorded under this title by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on a Christmas recording in 1997. It is also known by its first verse, “Good people all this Christmas time.”

The New Oxford Book Of Carols, in a detailed footnote following No 162, “Good People All, This Christmastime,” says: “… Dr WH Grattan-Flood (1859-1928) lived in Enniscorthy from 1895 until his death, and [...] took down the words and tune from a local singer; after revising the text, he sent the carol to the editors of The Oxford Book of Carols, who printed it as the ‘Wexford Carol’.” However, the note continues with more detail showing the text to be English in origin, and verses 1, 2, 4, are 5 are from Shawcross’s Old Castleton Christmas Carols.

Certainly, the Irish-language version seems to be a translation from English, as it is unlikely that any carol was written in Irish in English-speaking Co Wexford.

Winter at Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford ... the Wexford Carol is often associated with the tradition of the Kilmore Carols (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘The Wexford Carol’ is often associated with the Kilmore Carols from Kilmore, Co Wexford. It is often attributed too to Bishop Luke Wadding of Ferns and his collection of carols, first published in Ghent in 1684.

Luke Wadding’s little book had a far-reaching influence on the spiritual lives of the people of his diocese in Co Wexford. The book had the lengthy title: A small garland of pious and godly songs composed by a devout man, for the solace of his friends and neighbours in their afflictions. The Sweet and the Sower, the nettle and the flower, the Thorne and the Rose, this Garland Compose.

Bishop Luke Wadding, who should not be confused with his kinsman, the 17th-century Franciscan theologian from Waterford of the same name. Luke Wadding, whose family came from Ballycogley Castle, Co Wexford (which was on the market recently), was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ferns from 1683 to 1692, and he lived in Wexford town while he was bishop.

Wadding’s book contains some religious “posies” or poems written for the disinherited gentry of Co Wexford, and some verses relating to the “Popish Plot.” It also includes what was to become the foundation of a tradition of carol singing in Co Wexford, with 11 Christmas songs, two of which are sung to this day in Kilmore.

A similar carol is found in the Revd William Devereux’s A New Garland Containing Songs for Christmas (1728). William Devereux (1696-1771), from Tacumshane, was Parish Priest of Drinagh, near Wexford, from 1730 to 1771, and wrote several carols. He called his collection A New Garland to distinguish it from Bishop Luke Wadding’s earlier Pious Garland. The carols were first sung in a little chapel at Killiane.

‘The Wexford Carol’

Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town.
But mark how all things came to pass;
From every door repelled alas!
As long foretold, their refuge all
Was but an humble ox’s stall.

There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star,
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay,
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah was,
They humbly cast them at his feet,
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear,
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go,” the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find, this happy morn,
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”

With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went the Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by his side the Virgin Maid,
As long foretold, there was a blessed Messiah born.

‘The Sussex Carol’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams

‘The Wexford Carol’ is sometimes confused with ‘The Sussex Carol,’ which is sometimes referred to by its first line too: “On Christmas night all Christians sing.” We sang ‘The Sussex Carol’ as the Post-Communion hymn at the Cathedral Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Sunday morning [28 December 2014]. It is said the words of this carol were first published by Bishop Luke Wadding in A Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs (1684). However, it is not clear whether he wrote the song or that he was recording an earlier composition.

‘The Sussex Carol’ often features in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the Chapel of the King’s College, Cambridge, and a version of it also appears in the Irish Church Hymnal (5th edition, 2004) as Hymn No 176.

Edward Darling and Donald Davison, in their Companion to Church Hymnal, say the words are from a traditional English source, that they were adapted by Luke Wadding, and that they were reintroduced to English use through later editions of Wadding’s carols, published in London in the early 18th century, subsequently undergoing considerable modification.

Both the text and the tune to which it is now sung were discovered and written down quite independently by Cecil Sharp in Buckland, Gloucestershire, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heard it being sung by a Harriet Verrall of Monk’s Gate, near Horsham, Sussex – hence its name, ‘The Sussex Carol.’

The tune to which it is generally sung today is the one published by Vaughan Williams in 1919. Several years earlier, he included the carol in his Fantasia on Christmas Carols, first performed at the Three Carols Festival in Hereford Cathedral in 1912.

The words of ‘The Sussex Carol’ in the version collected by Vaughan Williams are:

On Christmas night all Christians sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
News of great joy, news of great mirth,
News of our merciful King’s birth.

Then why should men on earth be so sad,
Since our Redeemer made us glad,
When from our sin he set us free,
All for to gain our liberty?

When sin departs before His grace,
Then life and health come in its place.
Angels and men with joy may sing
All for to see the new-born King.

All out of darkness we have light,
Which made the angels sing this night:
“Glory to God and peace to men,
Now and for evermore, Amen!”

Tomorrow: ‘From glory unto glory!’.

Talking about Wexford Quay …en passant

Au quai? The quays of Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

When I was living in Wexford, the Quay was always known as the Kay – Kay to rhyme with Tay, rather than Quay to rhyme with Tea.

As in the Quay Wall, Wexford Quay or Kilmore Quay.

Or should I be talking about say the Quay of Wexford as in the Quai d’Orsay on the left bank of the Seine in Paris?

Perhaps those who are sniffy about this should think not of “Wexford peasant” but French en passant.

To the Quay? Au Quai? OK?

Kilmore Quay … Winter at Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Talking about ‘The Wexford Carol’ on RTÉ on Christmas Day

Winter on the quays in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This evening [25 December], RTE Radio 1 is broadcasting a special programme, The Wexford Carol, at 6.05 p.m.

I was interviewed by Aoife Nic Cormaic for this programme, which traces the history of the famous carol and talks to musicians and listeners about what makes it special, and what gives it its distinctly Irish character.

On the programme, I speak about The Wexford Carol, which is said to date from the 12th century. It is one of the oldest Irish carols and is also one of the oldest surviving Christmas carols in the European tradition.

The carol is thought to have originated in Co Wexford, but there are many traditions about this poem and song, and for many years it was said that only men should sing it, although since it gained a new popularity from the 1990s on, many popular female artists have also recorded The Wexford Carol.

Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford ... the organist, Dr William Grattan Flood (1857-1928), claimed to have discovered ‘The Wexford Carol’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Wexford Carol achieved a new popularity because of the work of Dr William Henry Grattan Flood (1857-1928), who was the organist and musical director at Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, and the author of The History of the Diocese of Ferns (1916). According to the Revd Joseph Ranson, in a paper in The Past (1949), this carol was discovered by Dr Grattan Flood in Co Wexford. He transcribed the carol from a local singer, and it was published in 1928, the year of his death, as No 14 in the Oxford Book of Carols, edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The carol was quickly included collections of carols and Christmas poems around the world, and is sometimes known as the Enniscorthy Carol, and was recorded under this title by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on a Christmas recording in 1997. It is also known by its first verse, “Good people all this Christmas time.”

The New Oxford Book Of Carols, in a detailed footnote following No 162, “Good People All, This Christmastime,” says: “… Dr WH Grattan-Flood (1859-1928) lived in Enniscorthy from 1895 until his death, and [...] took down the words and tune from a local singer; after revising the text, he sent the carol to the editors of The Oxford Book of Carols, who printed it as the ‘Wexford Carol’.” However, the note continues with more detail showing the text to be English in origin, and verses 1, 2, 4, are 5 are from Shawcross’s Old Castleton Christmas Carols.

Certainly, the Irish-language version seems to be a translation from English, as it is unlikely that any carol was written in Irish in English-speaking Co Wexford.

Winter at Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford ... the Wexford Carol is often associated with the tradition of the Kilmore Carols (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Wexford Carol is often associated with the Kilmore Carols from Kilmore, Co Wexford, and it is often attributed too to Bishop Luke Wadding of Ferns and his collection of carols, first published in Ghent in 1684.

Luke Wadding’s little book had a far-reaching influence on the spiritual lives of the people of his diocese in Co Wexford. The book had the lengthy title: A small garland of pious and godly songs composed by a devout man, for the solace of his friends and neighbours in their afflictions. The Sweet and the Sower, the nettle and the flower, the Thorne and the Rose, this Garland Compose.

Bishop Luke Wadding, who should not be confused with his kinsman, the 17th-century Franciscan theologian from Waterford of the same name. Luke Wadding, whose family came from Ballycogley Castle, Co Wexford (which was on the market recently), was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ferns from 1683 to 1692, and he lived in Wexford town while he was bishop.

Wadding’s book contains some religious “posies” or poems written for the disinherited gentry of Co Wexford, and some verses relating to the “Popish Plot.” It also includes what was to become the foundation of a tradition of carol singing in Co Wexford, with 11 Christmas songs, two of which are sung to this day in Kilmore.

A similar carol is found in the Revd William Devereux’s A New Garland Containing Songs for Christmas (1728). William Devereux (1696-1771), from Tacumshane, was Parish Priest of Drinagh, near Wexford, from 1730 to 1771, and wrote several carols. He called his collection A New Garland to distinguish it from Bishop Luke Wadding’s earlier Pious Garland. The carols were first sung in a little chapel at Killiane.

The Wexford Carol

Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town.
But mark how all things came to pass;
From every door repelled alas!
As long foretold, their refuge all
Was but an humble ox’s stall.

There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star,
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay,
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah was,
They humbly cast them at his feet,
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear,
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go,” the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find, this happy morn,
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”

With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went the Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by his side the Virgin Maid,
As long foretold, there was a blessed Messiah born.

The Sussex Carol, by Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Wexford Carol is sometimes confused with The Sussex Carol, which is sometimes referred to by its first line too: “On Christmas night all Christians sing.” It is said the words of this carol were first published by Bishop Luke Wadding in A Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs (1684). However, it is not clear whether he wrote the song or that he was recording an earlier composition.

Edward Darling and Donald Davison, in their Companion to Church Hymnal, the words are from a traditional English source, that they were adapted by Luke Wadding, and that they were reintroduced to English use through later editions of Wadding’s carols, published in London in the early 18th century, subsequently undergoing considerable modification.

Both the text and the tune to which it is now sung were discovered and written down quite independently by Cecil Sharp in Buckland, Gloucestershire, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heard it being sung by a Harriet Verrall of Monk’s Gate, near Horsham, Sussex – hence its name, The Sussex Carol.

The tune to which it is generally sung today is the one Vaughan Williams published in 1919. Several years earlier, he included the carol in his Fantasia on Christmas Carols, first performed at the Three Carols Festival in Hereford Cathedral in 1912.

The Sussex Carol often features in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the Chapel of the King’s College, Cambridge, and I hope to return to that service time and again in the coming weeks.

A version of the Sussex Carol also appears in the Irish Church Hymnal (5th edition, 2004) as Hymn No 176.

The words of The Sussex Carol, in the version collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams, are:

On Christmas night all Christians sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
News of great joy, news of great mirth,
News of our merciful King’s birth.

Then why should men on earth be so sad,
Since our Redeemer made us glad,
When from our sin he set us free,
All for to gain our liberty?

When sin departs before His grace,
Then life and health come in its place.
Angels and men with joy may sing
All for to see the new-born King.

All out of darkness we have light,
Which made the angels sing this night:
“Glory to God and peace to men,
Now and for evermore, Amen!”

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

Christmas poems (1): The Wexford Carol

Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford ... the organist, Dr William Grattan Flood (1857-1928), claimed to have discovered ‘The Wexford Carol’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

Over the next week or two, in these last days of Advent as we prepare for Christmas, I plan to post some of my favourite Christmas poems – although not necessarily in any order of preference.

My first choice is The Wexford Carol, which is said to date from the 12th century. It is one of the oldest Irish carols and is also one of the oldest surviving Christmas carols in the European tradition.

The carol, as you can imagine, is thought to have originated in Co Wexford. There are many traditions about this poem and song, and for many years, it was said that only men should sing it.

Since achieving renewed popularity, many popular female artists have recorded The Wexford Carol since the 1990s.

The Wexford Carol achieved a new popularity because of the work of Dr William Henry Grattan Flood (1857-1928), who was the organist and musical director at Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, and the author of The History of the Diocese of Ferns (1916). According to the Revd Joseph Ranson, in a paper in The Past (1949), this carol was discovered by Dr Grattan Flood in Co Wexford. He transcribed the carol from a local singer, and it was published in 1928, the year of his death, as No 14 in the Oxford Book of Carols, edited by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The carol was quickly included collections of carols and Christmas poems around the world, and is sometimes known as the Enniscorthy Carol, and was recorded under this title by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on a Christmas recording in 1997. It is also known by its first verse, “Good people all this Christmas time.”

The New Oxford Book Of Carols, in a detailed footnote following No 162, “Good People All, This Christmastime,” says: “… Dr WH Grattan-Flood (1859-1928) lived in Enniscorthy from 1895 until his death, and [...] took down the words and tune from a local singer; after revising the text, he sent the carol to the editors of The Oxford Book of Carols, who printed it as the ‘Wexford Carol’.” However, the note continues with more detail showing the text to be English in origin, and verses 1, 2, 4, are 5 are from Shawcross’s Old Castleton Christmas Carols.

Certainly, the Irish-language version seems to be a translation from English, as it is unlikely that any carol was written in Irish in English-speaking Co Wexford.

Winter at Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford ... the Wexford Carol is often associated with the tradition of the Kilmore Carols (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Wexford Carol is often associated with the Kilmore Carols from Kilmore, Co Wexford, and it is often attributed too to Bishop Luke Wadding of Ferns and his collection of carols, first published in Ghent in 1684.

Luke Wadding’s little book had a far-reaching influence on the spiritual lives of the people of his diocese in Co Wexford. The book had the lengthy title: A small garland of pious and godly songs composed by a devout man, for the solace of his friends and neighbours in their afflictions. The Sweet and the Sower, the nettle and the flower, the Thorne and the Rose, this Garland Compose.

Bishop Luke Wadding, who should not be confused with his kinsman, the 17th-century Franciscan theologian from Waterford of the same name. Luke Wadding, whose family came from Ballycogley Castle, Co Wexford (which is currently on the market), was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ferns from 1683 to 1692, and he lived in Wexford town while he was bishop.

Wadding’s book contains some religious “posies” or poems written for the disinherited gentry of Co Wexford, and some verses relating to the “Popish Plot.” It also includes what was to become the foundation of a tradition of carol singing in Co Wexford, with 11 Christmas songs, two of which are sung to this day in Kilmore.

A similar carol is found in the Revd William Devereux’s A New Garland Containing Songs for Christmas (1728). William Devereux (1696-1771), from Tacumshane, was Parish Priest of Drinagh, near Wexford, from 1730 to 1771, and wrote several carols. He called his collection A New Garland to distinguish it from Bishop Luke Wadding’s earlier Pious Garland. The carols were first sung in a little chapel at Killiane.

Winter on the quays in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Wexford Carol

Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town.
But mark how all things came to pass;
From every door repelled alas!
As long foretold, their refuge all
Was but an humble ox’s stall.

There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star,
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay,
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah was,
They humbly cast them at his feet,
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear,
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go,” the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find, this happy morn,
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”

With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went the Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by his side the Virgin Maid,
As long foretold, there was a blessed Messiah born.

The Sussex Carol, by Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Wexford Carol is sometimes confused with The Sussex Carol, which is sometimes referred to by its first line too: “On Christmas night all Christians sing.” It is said the words of this carol were first published by Bishop Luke Wadding in A Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs (1684). However, it is not clear whether he wrote the song or that he was recording an earlier composition.

Edward Darling and Donald Davison, in their Companion to Church Hymnal, the words are from a traditional English source, that they were adapted by Luke Wadding, and that they were reintroduced to English use through later editions of Wadding’s carols, published in London in the early 18th century, subsequently undergoing considerable modification.

Both the text and the tune to which it is now sung were discovered and written down quite independently by Cecil Sharp in Buckland, Gloucestershire, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heard it being sung by a Harriet Verrall of Monk’s Gate, near Horsham, Sussex – hence its name, The Sussex Carol.

The tune to which it is generally sung today is the one Vaughan Williams published in 1919. Several years earlier, he included the carol in his Fantasia on Christmas Carols, first performed at the Three Carols Festival in Hereford Cathedral in 1912.

The Sussex Carol often features in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the Chapel of the King’s College, Cambridge, and I hope to return to that service time and again in the coming weeks.

A version of the Sussex Carol also appears in the Irish Church Hymnal (5th edition, 2004) as Hymn No 176.

The words of The Sussex Carol, in the version collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams, are:

On Christmas night all Christians sing
To hear the news the angels bring.
News of great joy, news of great mirth,
News of our merciful King’s birth.

Then why should men on earth be so sad,
Since our Redeemer made us glad,
When from our sin he set us free,
All for to gain our liberty?

When sin departs before His grace,
Then life and health come in its place.
Angels and men with joy may sing
All for to see the new-born King.

All out of darkness we have light,
Which made the angels sing this night:
“Glory to God and peace to men,
Now and for evermore, Amen!”

Tomorrow: ‘Christmas’ by George Herbert

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

Chasing Pugin and walking on the beach

Autumn colours on the beach in Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

Everyone seems to have gone home for the bank holiday weekend: there were just three of in the chapel this morning for the Litany. But spiritual riches are founded not on numbers.

I spent the rest of the morning with my GP, for a consultation on my Vitamin B12 deficiency and my sarcoidosis, and another jab in the arm.

Just for a fleeting moment I thought most of the day had passed in the waiting room. But autumn this year had stretched out for an extra few weeks, the skies were turning grey, and thought it a shame to waste the rest of this day, the first day of the bank holiday weekend.

Two of us headed off to Wexford, and it was lunchtime by the time we came off the motorway at Ferns. We followed the Slaney down through Scarawalsh to Enniscorthy, and on to Edermine, where we crossed the river and the railway line and headed west to Bree, to look at Pugin’s Church of the Assumption, one of his first churches in Co Wexford, built between 1837 and 1840.

There was a funeral there today, and I wondered would we have managed to get inside otherwise.

From Bree, we headed down to Killurin, and I recalled Norrie Ruddock’s funeral here on the banks of the Slaney.

We followed the Slaney on down to Wexford, and headed west to Barntown, to look at another Pugin church, the Church of Saint Alphonsus, built in 1844-1848. There was a wedding there this afternoon, but it was still possible to photograph the outside of the church.

From there it was on to Tagoat, where Saint Mary’s Church, another Pugin gem, was built between 1843 and 1846. Thankfully the church was open, and it was a pleasure to photograph it inside and outside.

I had no beach walk yet this week, and we thought of heading on to Rosslare Strand, where I had lived briefly in 1974. But roadworks probably made the decision for us, and instead we headed down to Kilmore Quay.

It is hard to imagine that I was probably last in Kilmore Quay in 1974. Even though I have been through Co Wexford regularly, year-by-year since, the nearest I came to getting back to Kilmore Quay was taking part in the sit-ins on the site of the proposed nuclear power station at Carnsore Point in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Guillemot and the harbour at Kilmore Quay, with the village rising above (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

I suppose Kilmore Quay could be described as the Kinsale or the Dingle of south Co Wexford. It is a picturesque village in a picture-postcard sort of way with its thatched cottages, its quaint pubs and its narrow streets. But the autumn lights were fading as we got there late in the afternoon, the winds were stirring up and the rains were threatening.

First we stopped into the Silver Fox for a late – a very late – lunch and a half bottle of wine. Then we had a walk along the beach beside the Quay, and from the little beach looked out at the Saltee Islands and recalled old tales about the capture of Bagenal Harvey in 1798 and the King of the Saltees in the 1950s or 1960s. Then it was a walk along quay ... the sea breeze was breaking over the walls, and even the surface water in the harbour looked choppy. And it was sad to see the Guillemot, the Wexford Maritime Museum which once graced the quays in Wexford Town, is now neglected, rusting and fenced off, with danger notices warning the curious away.

Looking out at the Saltee Islands from Kilmore Quay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

From there it was over to the small crescent shaped beach on the east side of the village. The waves were less forceful, less vociferous, but it was still obvious that winter is only weeks away.

After looking inside Saint Peter’s, the parish church inspired by Pugin and the Gothic Revival in Co Wexford, we had a look at the Wooden House, one of the most interesting thatched buildings in Kilmore Quay. It was owned by the Furlong family from the 17th or 18th century, and the family was badly treated in 1798 in the search for Bagenal Harvey and other leaders of the United Irishmen, who were hiding in a cave on the Saltee Islands. Much of the house was extended in the 1860s with wood salvaged from a Greek ship that was shipwrecked nearby in the 1860s, with sad loss of all 16 Greeks on board.

On the way back into Wexford, I wondered, just wondered, whether we might get into Pugin’s church in Barntown. The rain was now coming down, but there was light inside. The journey was worth it ... this is one of the most beautiful parish churches I have visited anywhere in Ireland. It was a wonderful climax to the day.

On the way back, we stopped briefly in Ferns. It had been a perfect day. I must write about those Pugin churches in Bree, Tagoat and especially in Barntown over the next few days.