The history of Christmas carols and four famous faces discuss their favourites

Even the biggest Scrooge has a Christmas carol that transports them to another place. Helen O’Callaghan chats to four well known faces and voices about their favourite.

A Christmas carol can instantly make you a time-traveller. ‘Away in a Manger’ puts me back on the farm of my childhood, where it was easy to imagine a baby in a manger with cattle lowing — the same place where I instinctively understood the wide spaces of ‘Silent Night’, from the mother in the stable to the shepherds on the hill to the angels in a high, star-filled sky.

The jaunty tunes of ‘Jingle Bells’ on the radio magically transport me to a schoolyard of girls playing a skipping game, just after we’ve stuck holly and ivy to wire coat-hangers to make Christmas wreaths. I hear the cheerful warnings of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ and recall that big-brother-is-watching feeling, long before the era of reality shows.

Andrew Gant, composer, music lecturer and author of newly-published Christmas Carols, From Village Green to Church Choir, says everyone loves a carol, even Scrooge. “They summon up a special kind of midwinter mood, mingled with the aroma of mince pies and mulled wine and the twinkle of lights on a tree. It’s a very particular sort of magic.”

Gant’s book looks at the history of 22 carols — some of which originated “in the mountains of Austria or 19th century America…or [in] sturdy hymnbooks from Finland”— and throws up some fascinating details. Some believe the words of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ were a “coded invitation to rebellion — a clandestine appeal to English Catholics to support Bonnie Prince Charlie’s insurrection”.

Many carols gained bits and lost bits over the centuries. Gant says ‘Hark, the Herald Angels Sing’ “bears the imprint of some strong and colourful personalities”. Among those who created the carol as we know it today were Charles Wesley, “father of Methodism and of a talented, successful and badly-behaved family” and Martin Madan, “priest and author of an enthusiastic treatise on polygamy”.

Few carols have had as much scorn heaped on them as ‘Good King Wenceslas’, says Gant, with one critic calling it the “product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the 13th century”. In fact, Good King Wenceslas was really Vaclav, Duke of Bohemia, who was brought up by his granny until she was murdered by his mother. The only part of the title that’s true is that he was good.

Carols have always been ripe for parody. Gant recalls from the early 1970s a version of ‘While Shepherds Watched’ — ‘While shepherds watched their peas and hops/all boiling in the pot/a lone angel came falling down/and spoiled the jolly lot’.

According to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the top five most played Christmas songs for the first five years of the 21st century were ‘The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)’, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, ‘Winter Wonderland’, ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ and ‘White Christmas’.

So whether you plan to deck the halls with boughs of holly, go dashing through the snow or buy a present of two turtle doves, you’re sure to have your favourite Christmas carol. We asked four well-known faces to tell us theirs.

Former RTE presenter Bill O’Herlihy

“I’m a traditionalist. I love the whole celebration of Christmas — Santa Claus for the kids, midnight Mass, holly and ivy, the excitement in town and I love Christmas carols.

“My favourite of all is ‘O Holy Night’. It’s magnificent. It captures, in my estimation, the entire spirit of Christmas and it’s a magnificent piece of music. When I hear it, I always feel ‘this is Christmas coming’. I like to hear it two weeks before Christmas. It stays with me.

“I must first have heard it 60 years ago. From the first time I heard it, I was captivated. For me, it crystallises the meaning of Christmas.”

Soprano Regina Nathan

“My favourite Christmas carol is ‘The Little Drummer Boy’. It’s so simple. It conjures up a beautiful image. I love the innocence of it, the sincerity and integrity. The little drummer boy thinks he has nothing to give but, of course, the most precious thing he is giving is himself — and that is what he is doing by playing the drum for the Baby Jesus as a present, as a gift.

“I love it musically too. It starts so simply and then it grows a little in intensity. You can imagine him coming into confidence as he plays the drum. Then he retreats, goes shy again. The music captures so much feeling. It was composed in 1941 and there are many versions but I really like David Bowie’s version.”

Bishop of Cork and Ross John Buckley

“My favourite Christmas carol has always been ‘Silent Night’. It’s one of the most popular Christmas carols in the world. Many people would have a recollection of it in an emotional moment.

“I have vivid memories of it being sung in my local church in Inchigeela. It was magnificent — the whole congregation participated. I felt something special was happening, a special event being commemorated, something really dramatic. Everybody was in good form. There was an air of celebration. We were in national school at the time and this hymn gave us the impression a great event had taken place.

“’Silent Night’ has an extraordinary history. It originated in Austria around 1820 and it was originally written in German. At the Christmas truce of 1914 during World War I, it was the carol that soldiers on both sides of the front line sang and knew well. They sang that hymn simultaneously in French, English and German. It has been translated into 140 languages and what’s beautiful about it is its simplicity — of both words and music. It captures the mood of Christmas as a time of joy, love and peace.”

Dave Mac Ardle, presenter of Dave Mac’s Drive on Cork’s Redfm

“I like best Nat King Cole’s ‘The Christmas Song’— the one with the line ‘chestnuts roasting on an open fire’. He’s got a wonderful voice and it gives you a nice flavour this time of year. It has a very nice, mellow, warm, relaxing mood — the kind of Christmas I always have in mind to experience even though it doesn’t always happen like that.

“Nostalgia is always a big factor at Christmas. Christmas reinforces tradition. It provides comfort — you’re doing the same thing on the same day and looking back. A song like Nat King Cole’s has a lot of nostalgic flavour. I look forward to it being part of our Christmas programming. We only play it around the core days of Christmas. I also love ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ by Andy Williams. Both songs aren’t by contemporary artists — they’re timeless Christmas classics.”