The Kilkenny Observer Newspaper is delighted to present our ‘2025 Christmas short story series’. We invited five Kilkenny based writers to submit a short story or poems each week, which we hope you will enjoy. This is the Observers fifth year promoting creative writing in the community.
Week three sees the work of four poets with their memories of Christmas. Welcome to : Kevin Dowling, Nancy Geoghan, Jane Meally and Willie Joe Meally….
A Christmas Wish
By Kevin Dowling
You came a long way,
a lonely star to guide you,
finding no welcome and all the rooms
taken with noisy visitors down for the census,
until a kindly stranger
offered you his barn,
apologising shyly that you’d have to share,
with his cow and fresh born calf
and some lambs, who’d lost
their mother this past winter.
As you smiled, grateful for rest,
were you lonely, far from your own
while you waited your time,
not knowing what the future held?
I hope you found peace there at least.
Looking out this stormy night,
I light my candle
to bless your journey home.
Kevin Dowling lives and works in County Kilkenny. He is a member of Clogh writing group in North Kilkenny and has been writing poems and stories for a few years. Poems published in The Kilkenny Anthology, Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet, Stony Thursday Book, Where I Am, Riposte. Poems also included in Kilkenny poetry phone line.
Christmas memories
By Nancy Geoghan
Christ save all here
Happy memories
Re living 50 years
In disbelief
Sudden death
Troubled hearts
Many tears
Another lonely day
Surviving sorrow
Nancy Geoghan was born and raised on the Chatsworth Road in Castlecomer. A lot of her writing is memory based and her prose and poetry have appeared in a number of publications including her work with the Clogh writers group.
Christmas Gift
By Jane Mealy
We wrapped it carefully
in shiny Christmas paper
carried it carefully from our house
across the field to your house,
gathered round you
handed it to you,
smiling, shaking, waiting.
You slowly unwrapped the paper,
‘What is it at all?
A crib?’
Like an angel you placed it
in your window,
for you for us
for all the rest of our lives.*
*after Seamus Heaney “When all the others were away at Mass”
Jane Meally, from Crutt, Co. Kilkenny, is a founder member of Clogh Writers (1995). Jane likes to read and write poetry and her work has appeared in local publications and anthologies.
First published in Where I Am, Poems Stories and Memories. Clogh Writers 2023
Christmas Time in the Fifties
By Willie Joe Meally
There’s a heavy fall coming
there will be no getting out,
have everything in
surely four to five feet.
We thank Peggy for bringing us the forecast.
My mother writes a list:
Stone of flour and whole wholemeal
sugar, tea, salt and pepper
raisins, currants, sago, custard, rice, jelly
bull’s eyes, liquorice
Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut
side of bacon, rashers, sausages and puddings
ten pigs’ feet, four pigs’ heads
a bottle of Sandeman
four packets of biscuits, Marietta and Custard Creams
candles, paraffin oil, matches
Guess the rest.
Mother, will Santy arrive at all?
Sure he won’t know the roof from the yard.
- Santy always comes.
When do we leave out the Christmas cake
the whiskey and the carrot?
- Go off and gather a few sprigs for me
then we’ll dance a batch of culm.
She brings the shovels inside
Icicles hang from the thatch,
sparrows pick crumbs under the whitethorn.
She draws two buckets of water from the well
tosses flour into an earthenware bowl
bread soda, salt and buttermilk
mixing the dough with both hands,
kneads it on the bread board,
places it in the bakepot over a coal fire.
Sweeping the flag floor with a besom
she wonders, How long will it last this time?
We were tired looking at that snowman last year.
We arrive back
carrying bundles of sprigs and sticks
Are there currants in that mother?
- It’s a plain one, a mhac.
Sammy says there’s only a sprinkle on the way.
She looks out the frost covered window, smiling,
- Sammy is always right.
Willie-Joe Meally, from Moneenroe, Co. Kilkenny. A coalminer’s son, from an early age he was steeped in coalmining history and lore, hearing tales from the fireside and crossroads around Moneenroe and surrounding areas. A member of Clogh Writers, Willie-Joe writes poems, remembering times past and observing our present times. His poems reflect the natural world of times gone by, recalling traditions, customs and heritage.
