Consider Well and Bear in Mind
I hope – and imagine – that most iIrish readers recognize the first two lines of the Wexford Carol. When the ice glistens on the bare branches outside our windows, and the stars poke through the darkest canopy of Cleveland’s winter sky, this old song seems to fit our own climate as it bids us to “bear in mind what our Good God for us has done.”
It recounts the story of Christ’s birth, as Mary is “from every door repelled” until settling into the “ox’s stall.” There she (and the unmentioned Joseph) is visited by the fearful but thankful shepherds who followed the angel’s bidding and by the wandering wise men who followed the star.
The essentials of the Christmas story are told in five stanzas, and though there is a clear sense of the miraculous, what resonates more is the lowliness, humility, fear, and obedience that every person experiences. Mary, the shepherds, and the Magi are variously rejected, afraid, or lost but they follow in faith.
We are advised to “mark right well what came to pass”: the “Lord of Life, the beloved son, the blessed Messiah” has been sent to us. Sent, deliberately sent, the “beloved Messiah” sent.
Here is the song in English:
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 right well what came to pass
From every door repelled, alas
As was foretold, their refuge all
Was but a humble ox’s stall
Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep
To whom God’s angel did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear
Arise 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 Savior Christ behold
Within a manger he was laid
And by his side a virgin maid
Attending on the Lord of Life
Who came on earth to end all strife
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 lay
They humbly cast them at his feet
With gifts of gold and incense sweet
Enniscorthy
Some hold that the Wexford Carol is the oldest carol in Ireland and date it as a medieval hymn from the twelfth century. Other scholars claim it likely originated in the 15th or 16th century. What is certain is that Dr. William Henry Grattan Flood, an organist at Saint Aidan’s Cathedral in Enniscorthy, transcribed the lyrics and melody from a local lady and added the song to the repertoire. Grattan would have done so around 1911, and the song was included in the widely-disseminated Oxford Book of Carols.
Despite the ambiguity around the time of its composition and even whether its original language was Irish or English, the felt desperateness of the long night before salvation comes is at one with the experience of the Penal laws. These laws, enacted in the 17th and 18th century to ensure Protestant ascendancy, brutalized the Irish by denying land ownership (eldest sons could only inherit if they converted to Protestantism), barring public office, and prohibiting freedom of Catholic worship.
Fines and imprisonment could be imposed on Catholics for worshiping, and this reign of fear partially explains the song’s oral preservation. The damage inflicted lasted longer in memory and in material conditions than their repeal in the late eighteenth century, and if the particulars of this dark period are not explicit in the song, they are felt in allusion and melody.
For more on the penal laws, you might look at anything written by Ian McBride, the Foster Professor at Oxford, the only endowed chair in Irish Studies in Britain.
As for its effect, the melody of the Wexford Carol is clearly that of an Irish folksong. Irish music is broadly understood through its meter, stress, and mode. The musical explanation for what we feel as a whispering melancholy in the Wexford Carol is that Irish folk tunes employ “modes” that play different notes than those in the scales of major or minor keys.
Four modes can often be heard in Irish tunes; Ionian, Aeolian, Dorian, and Mixolydian. The Wexford Carol is in the Mixolydian mode, meaning that the seventh note in the scale (a C) is a half-step down from the same note (C#) in the Ionian scale. You can hear it, of course, but this whimsical explanation may help understand the modes:
Major is like a dog (bright and bubbly)
Minor is like a cat (serious and mysterious)
Dorian is like a Cat but with the back legs of a Dog
Mixolydian is a Dog with the back legs of a Cat.
You can also hear the distinctive sound of the Mixolydian mode in the same website: https://thesession.org/discussions/42961). The change of a half step in a single note account for the sound that some describe as “poignant” in Irish music.
I don’t think that poignant is the exact word, since it is both overused and can mean a sharp sense of emotion. “Plaintive” is better: more subtle, with the additional sense of pleading or an under current of lamentation.
That seems the right spirit and right melody for a tune sung in dark times that appear without relief but where the faithful persevere in hope. If you want to learn even more about Irish modes, take a look at https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3MrdvoCDCR4.
Lastly, the Wexford Carol is also known as the Enniscorthy Christmas Carol. All of us who love Colm Toibin recognize Enniscorthy as his birthplace in Wexford and the scene of many of his novels. Appropriately, Toibin has commented on the song, noting that, “Despite growing up in the town that produced a world-famous carol, “the idea that it really was ours,” and that it was really one of the things that made Enniscorthy famous,” was a much later realization.” […} “It was merely part of what was sung at that time of the year.” https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2023/11/16/wexford-carol-christmas-hark-246500/
Many great musicians have performed the Wexford Carol, but surely one of the best is the collaboration among Alison Krauss, the Bluegrass singer and fiddler; Yo Yo Ma, the international cellist; and Natalie McMaster, the Cape Breton fiddler. https://youtu.be/yxDZjg_Igoc?si=nKlt2NWtEStUkQgz.
Nollaig Shona!
