Then & Now: Turning the page on a new tomorrow

HAPPY NEW YEAR and best wishes to all as we welcome 2024 and look forward to what it delivers. We all have our own hopes, desires and ambitions, for a more fulfilled and better year than the previous one. Burning Mr Old Year is a new year tradition in some cities of Colombia, and it requires the participation of the entire family, and it is a lot of fun.

They fabricate a big stuffed male doll that represents the old year, and then they stuff the doll with different materials. They dress the doll with old clothes from each member of the family. Sometimes they put some little fireworks in to make it more exciting at the time they burn it. They also put inside things that they do not want anymore, and objects that can bring sadness or bad memories.

These things will burn with the old year, meaning that they want to forget all the bad things that happened during the past year. On New Year’s Eve at midnight, they set the doll on fire. This symbolises burning the past and getting ready to start a happy new year without bad memories of the old. I think we would all like to do this at the end of some years, which has challenged us individually or as a family unit. The majority of people have baggage to shed and imperfections to overcome, but help may be close at hand if we ask the many helplines and organisations out there.

New Year’s Day is a bridge between the past and the future, and a reminder to start afresh with a clean slate, and a willing and determined heart. Many people make new year's resolutions which are a credit to all the people who do so. Human nature being what it is alas, the great majority of the resolutions are short lived. Still, it is good to make new year resolutions, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of things that are well worth doing.

The beginning of a new year is a wonderful time to start keeping a diary. It is an activity that many people embark on with great enthusiasm. It may become a short lived activity after a while and go the same way as the resolutions. There are a number of various styles of diary keeping with many doing a chronicle of daily events, which can prove quite a very useful record. They may include what kind of weather there was on a particular day. The work that the writer did and any journeys they made. The daily births, marriages, and deaths, would also be recorded.

In many households in my young days the calendar was used to keep track of such events. It would have been in the Christmas box as a thank you from the local grocery shop for their custom during the year. The dates that the house rent, and rates were due to be paid were high on the list and a red ring was often drawn around it to highlight its importance.
In farming houses, the time a cow was bulled and due to calf was recorded prominently on the appropriate dates. The days the cows were brought in and housed for the winter months and then left out on grass the following spring were also very important dates. The date the horse was fitted with new shoes, and the hatching hen commenced her duty was also written down.

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There is a section of people who write down the full details of their private lives in their diaries. They may describe their feelings for other people, and give their views about current happenings, within their circle and nationwide. These diaries are usually written with an eye for future publication. The juicier bits they recall and the more scandals the recount the better their publication will sell.

Growing up I often heard people talk about the cockstep (coiscéim coiligh) which I found puzzling. I used to wonder how a period of time - a day could be measured in linear-cockstep length-terms. The answer I found was contained in an entry in Amhaloibh Ó Súilleabháin's diary (1827-35) He was a hedge schoolmaster from Kerry but living in Callan, County Kilkenny at the time. Under the date January 6, 1828, he wrote the following: “The sixth day Sunday that is the end day of the twelve days of Christmas. It is reckoned that the day has now grown longer by the length of a cock's step, that is, fourteen minutes, that is almost a quarter of an hour. The morning was thin clouded till eight o'clock; a fine sunny clear skied day; wind east, six points south”.

The Oxford Dictionary is not as precise, describing it as follows; “Cock-stride: the length of the step of a cock”, as “the measure of a very short distance or space”. The older generation were always happy when they reached the cockstep, on January 6 and they could look forward to better daylight. An old saying goes as follows; as the days lengthen, the cold strengthens.

Little Christmas was celebrated on January 6 the feast of the Epiphany. It was celebrated with a festive meal of somewhat milder proportions than on Christmas Day. In Irish it was known widely as Nollaig na mBan (Women’s Christmas) and a day when women could put their feet up and be waited on by the other members of the household. The meal consisted of dainties preferred by women –cake, tea, and wine, instead of the Christmas Day fare more aimed at the men. Nowadays women gather together in groups and go out for a meal on the night instead. This tradition is big in County Kerry and getting more popular in other parts of the country.

The day after the Epiphany the more permanent Christmas decorations were taken down and stored away for the next Christmas. The holly and other now withered greenery were always burned for good luck. It was considered wrong to throw them out on the manure heap or over the ditch. According to a widespread custom that covered all provinces they were put aside and kept to be burned to heat the pancake griddle on Shrove Tuesday night.

The spirits were low, and the house looked very bare when we returned from school that evening. We never went back to school until after January 6, but times have changed, and Little Christmas is even a school day now. The only enjoyment left then was that we were allowed to burn the greenery in the open fire. It made some lovely crackling sounds as it burst into flames and sent some colourful smoke up the wide chimney to signal the end of the festivities and Christmas.

On a personal note, I look forward to a lot of healthy activities in the coming year, and I will conclude with an appropriate verse from Iris Hesselden.

The past is another country; we don't live there anymore,
We left it all behind us, new pathways to explore,
So forward now, with lighter heart, we will walk with firmer thread,
And see that bright horizon-it's shining up ahead.