In the Western church, Jan. 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany, marking the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, traditionally the last of the 12 days of the Christmas festival. In many Eastern Orthodox churches, Jan. 6 is the beginning of the Christmas celebration. But in Ireland, Jan. 6 is Nollaig na mBan—pronounced “Null-ig na mawn”—“Women’s Christmas.”
The Irish tradition has long been that on this final day of the busy festive season, women get to put their feet up and enjoy a day of socializing. In some versions of the tradition, men take over the household chores.
The celebration is enjoying a popular restoration in Ireland. Does it offer any pointers to the church as the global synod creates new expectations about the contributions and role of women?
Although Nollaig na mBa is well established in Irish culture, especially in the Munster province in the south of the country, there is not extensive literature defining the celebration or exploring its cultural roots. A newspaper article from 1998 notes that it is “a custom which seems to have been passed on orally and informally, drifting down like feathers from one generation to the next.”
Indeed, perhaps the most famous feast in Irish literature takes place on the same day, but it seems to quite consciously depict a household of women who cannot take the day off. James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” includes a male character, Gabriel Conroy, ostentatiously presenting himself as the provider of the elaborate meal, even though it is his aunts (and their housekeeper) who are run off their feet to prepare it.
“The Dead” feels like a comment on Nollaig na mBan, though the celebration is never mentioned. But there is a renowned poem in Irish by Seán Ó Ríordáin, composed 1947, called “Óiche Nollaig na mBan,” “The Night of Women’s Christmas,” which proceeds to discuss something else entirely. While the holiday features in the title, the poem itself is about a storm.
The Irish scholar Ríona Ní Churtáin has written about one of the origin myths of the festival. According to folklore, the idea was common that “if a person remained up till midnight on that night he would see water turned into wine.” It seems fitting that somewhere in the background of an Irish tradition that seeks to create space to recognize the contribution of women, we find a connection to the popular devotion to Mary and the scriptural story of the wedding feast at Cana.
What form the celebration took over the years and how widely it was practiced remains somewhat ambiguous. In a famous collection of Irish folklore called The Year in Ireland, Kevin Danaher records that after the hearty feasts around Christmas Day, on Women’s Christmas it was typical to find that “the dainties preferred by women—cake, tea, wine—were more in evidence.” Rest, socializing and a chance to enjoy the food the women wanted to consume rather than serving the needs of the wider family seemed to have been central to the tradition.
A modern revival
There has, however, been a surge in interest in the tradition in recent years. Few events testify to this more than the Nollaig na mBan Festival held in the north inner city of Dublin every Jan. 6. I spoke to one of the festival organizers, music agent Laura Williams, about how this neighborhood event got established. She explained that what began as a small gathering of women over food and drinks has grown into a large, multi-event celebration of local women’s contributions to the life of north Dublin.
Grounded in food and drink, female friendship, music and culture, that communal celebration keeps the spirit of the older tradition alive. But it also seeks to honor local women whose work and dedication can so often be overlooked. Women who have been “unsung heroes” in their communities—teachers, volunteers, caregivers—are publicly celebrated, along with the occasional Irish Olympic champion or two.
A key element of the Dublin festival is an awards ceremony where women who have been nominated by their neighbors receive flowers, recognition and framed scrolls. Ms. Williams explained that the fest encourages civic engagement and raises recognition of everyday heroes. Posters featuring honorees are displayed across the neighborhood.
She remembered one year fondly when “there was a local lady going by and she had her child in the pram, and the girl was able to point out every single woman—where they lived, what they had done for the community.”
“It was really nice to see several generations of people all taking this to heart.”
This year there are plans to project images of the Nollaig na mBan award winners on a prominent city center building to create a public tribute: “View our dames on Dame Street.”
The north inner city of Dublin has attracted media attention for all the wrong reasons of late—gang troubles and anti-immigrant disturbances among them—but Ms. Williams sees this festival as one of many efforts that celebrate “the great area that we live in that quite often doesn’t get any positive press.”
For Ms. Williams, there is no mystery why the Nollaig na mBan tradition has been revived. “So many women have done so much in the area without looking for any thanks,” she says. “This is a day off, a bit of fun and a chance for them to be celebrated with their families.”
Synodal parallels
That is a message that resonates strongly in contemporary Ireland, and, ideally, Ms. Williams would like to see the local festival spread across the island.
The church in Ireland might wish to take note of the growing popularity of Nollaig na mBan, considering the substantial, essential contribution of women. The popular evolution of Nollaig na mBan offers a striking parallel to the work of synodality in the Catholic Church in Ireland. The Irish bishops began a synodal experiment even before Pope Francis launched the worldwide Synod on Synodality in 2021.
Dioceses across the island conducted a groundbreaking consultation and listening process that began that year and which concluded in 2022 with a synthesis document capturing the major themes. These documents informed the Irish Catholic Church’s contribution to the synodal meetings in Rome in October 2023 and 2024.
Julieann Moran, general secretary for the Synodal Pathway of the Catholic Church in Ireland, recalls that one of the themes that became prominent in Ireland is the place of women in the church. “Interestingly,” Ms. Moran notes, “that [theme] emerged in every national synthesis around the world.” There were over 100 submissions from national churches “and the role and voice and need for women to be seen in leadership roles came up in every one of them.”
Citing the Nollaig na mBan festival’s example, Ms. Moran suggests that “elevating [voices] that haven’t been as present doesn’t mean the other previously more dominant voice is diminished,” only that the benefit to the whole body will be greater.
She sees in the new popularity of Nollaig na mBan a way to imagine an Irish church that actively listens to and includes women. “For an awful long time women were seen as the formators of faith in the home”—and limited to the home. Now she believes a more expansive role for women in faith formation is growing more likely.
While the synodal process is bringing the need to reconsider women’s roles to the surface in a powerful way, it is a consensus informed by the everyday experience of the church. “I would just love someone to have the opportunity to come in to somewhere like the bishops’ conference [offices] for a day to see the amount of work and influence that women actually do have,” Ms. Moran says.
Along with her central role, she notes that Nicola Brady serves as general secretary for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland; Leslie Alcock directs the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas; and Caoimhe de Barra is the chief executive of the bishops’ international relief agency, Trocaire. The Irish church’s family counseling service, Accord, is led largely by women, and the majority of Ireland’s Catholic schools are led and staffed by women.
In every diocese, “I can name a woman that’s at the forefront in terms of catechesis, parish renewal, adult faith formation,” Ms. Moran says. What the synodal process has emphasized is the need to further elevate and celebrate women’s contributions, “to provide spaces for women’s voices and their qualities and their leadership gifts to be not only valued but seen more and more in those positions of governance and authority.”
The opportunity that Nollaig na mBan gives to communities to honor its unsung women heroes is something the synodal process promises to achieve within the church. “Women’s voices have always been represented in some way,” Ms. Moran says. But she feels more can now be done to raise them up.
What she appreciates is that “with both the synodal journey and the growth of the celebration of Nollaig na mBan, we are saying we can still honor and value all that more hidden work while giving honor and valuing and celebrating the contribution that women are making in public life, and that includes the life and mission of the church.”
Just as Nollaig na mBan celebrates women’s historic and contemporary contributions, the synodal pathway envisions a church where women’s voices are integral to its mission and future. Both movements remind us that honoring contributions—whether in homes, neighborhoods or ecclesial structures—is essential to creating spaces where everyone can thrive.
