Michael Moynihan: Penny Dinners to the Panto — Seven Days of a Cork Christmas
Billa O'Connell as Dame Dolly with Jack and Jill (Ian McGuirk and Karen Hackett) in a scene from 'Jack and the Beanstalk' at Cork Opera House. Picture: Dan Linehan
I was going to hold this one until Christmas Eve, but then I realised that would be too late for a Christmas column of this type.
I have my reasons. For a more colourful explanation of my logic, see under heading no. 7 below.
I was going to go all in on 12 Days of a Cork Christmas until I had another brainwave: how would 12 days work the day before Christmas, when today leaves just eight shopping days before the main event?
Fair enough. Life gives you lemons, make lemonade, so here are The Seven Days of a Cork Christmas. (I gave you all one day off).
I know there are plenty of charities which are deserving of your attention, and that for many of them the notion of a holiday or a day off is a laughable concept, but I draw your attention here to the Cork Penny Dinners in particular.
This outlet is based on service not judgement, as they say themselves. They serve a hot nourishing meal of soup, main course, dessert, and tea or coffee daily; in addition, sandwiches, biscuits, fruit, and juice are also available to take away as an evening meal.
If you have any doubts about the power of this service, consider where your own evening meal is coming from tonight, or your Christmas dinner next week. And then ponder your next step if tonight’s or next Friday’s meal was unavailable.
Cork Penny Dinners serves 2,000 meals a week to people and can always do with more support.
Go here to help: http://corkpennydinners.ie/untitled-2/untitled-copy
This may surprise younger readers, but there have been occasions when there were no Christmas lights in Cork. Truly.
Go back to 1985, a pretty grim period in the city’s history, with thousands of people losing their jobs and thousands more streaming abroad as emigrants.
That festive season there were no Christmas lights on Patrick St, which gave the city centre a close resemblance to a remote Romanian town under the boot of Nicolae Ceaușescu, though with a little less of the charm.
That’s why the Christmas lights are important. And why you shouldn’t take them for granted. Ever.
Spiced beef is great because it’s tasty but it’s also great because it annoys people who are not from Cork when you tell them there’s a special kind of beef you can only get in Cork and which you can only eat at a certain time of the year.
I can remember one time explaining all of this to a work colleague in Dublin who said it was “the most Cork thing you have ever said, at least until the next most Cork thing that you’re going to say”.
I confess I did go on a bit about the spiced beef.
He said my description of spiced beef put him in mind of pastrami and asked were there any similarities between them?
Our friendship never recovered, to be honest.
Produced by our sister publication , this is an indicator of the arrival of Christmas that is more reliable than the calendar itself.
And there’s a link to this column! Having spoken to Jason O’Gorman of Dynamite Studios a few months back, your correspondent was delighted to see his artwork adorn the front of the H. B. this Christmas.
An excellent choice by editor John Dolan and a typically classy effort from Jason.
They grow up so fast, don’t they?
This is another charity, but I’m afraid for personal reasons I feel less well-disposed towards this one than the Penny Dinners.
Disclosure: a hundred years ago when we were rolling down Shandon St from the North Mon in our uniforms, we felt on the back foot all the time when making the scene in town because the Pres lads had this SHARE racket all set up.
For context, as a generation of children, we were more or less allowed to roam the city freely as soon as we made our first communion; it was an age when hundreds of kids crowded the footpaths to and from school just before 9am and just after 3pm.
The downside was we were strolling Patrick St like adults but didn’t actually know how to behave. Hence our consternation when a schoolmate reported seeing two lads in Pres uniforms having coffee with two girls from St Al’s in the Queen’s Old Castle.
Having coffee. How could you beat that?
I’m past all that now. I suppose.
Donate to SHARE here — https://sharecork.org/donations/ — and make a difference.
A mouthful, admittedly, but I think all citizens need to be aware that in 1858 Charles Dickens didn’t just come to Cork, but he read from the text which would go on to set the template for our expectations of Christmas.
Dickens wasn’t so much a reader as a full-blooded performer of his own work, and at what was then the Athenaeum, later to be renamed the Cork Opera House, he produced what he called a ‘little book’ which he wanted to read from.
“The ‘little book’ was the , one of the most exquisite prose idylls in any language. Full of strange character sketching, queer conversations, of genial lovable humour, of quaint pathetic tenderness and, withal, founded on a violent importability — the sudden conversion of a miser by a dream.” That was the view of a reporter from the then who was present at the reading, hearing the tale of Scrooge, Marley, and the Cratchits performed by the man who invented them all.
It went down well.
“At the end,” added the reporter, “the gratified listeners saluted the departure of their illustrious entertainer with a hearty and cordial farewell.”
Despite the hectoring tone of a radio ad which usually surfaces around this time of the year, the Christmas pantomime is not the sole preserve of a single theatre in Dublin.
Cork’s panto tradition goes back. And back. The pantomime proper first came to Cork in the 1840s and 100 years later there were up to eight pantomimes running in various halls and theatres throughout the city. In Blackpool and Gurranabraher, the AOH Hall on Morrison’s Island, and the CYMS in Castle St, and other venues as well.
All of which brings to mind the great old line from Billa O’Connell — which may or may not have been ventilated first in one of those pantomimes — about the gentleman stricken by conscience nearing 5pm on a Christmas Eve long ago.
Having been waylaid by friends, our well-refreshed hero suddenly remembers the purpose of his visit to the city in the first place and heads for the Coal Quay in search of vital supplies for the home front.
“Any chance of a turkey and a Christmas tree?” he inquires of the first stall-holder he encounters.
“A tree?” says the stall-holder. “It’s Christmas Eve, boy. We’re already selling Easter Eggs.”
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