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Festival of Village Carols, 2006, at Grenoside
Saturday 2 December 2006

The Kilmore Traditional Singers
from Co. Wexford, Ireland.
Adapted from an article by Ian Russell in the 2006 Festival programme,
and added to by Edwin Macadam from various sources...
 

The Kilmore carols are not set to the rumbustious type of fuguing tunes associated with the traditions around Sheffield, but rayher they are more ethereal and mystical in character. In predating the Yorkshire and Derbyshire traditions, the KIlmore tradition provides a glimpse into an earlier form of carolling, characterised by a single melody line, which is ornamented, free flowing and unhurried, often modal in character, and performed by male voice in unison. It is not unusual for a carol to last more than ten minutes.

The current group of singers is led by Liam Sheil, who has been singing these carols for over forty years.Other members of the group, who all come from local families, are Liam's son, Jimmy Sheil; Robbie Whelan; pat bates and his brother Martin Bates; and Dixie Devereux (pronounced 'Dev-rix'). Their backgrounds are in fishing, farming and haulage, and each is a fine singer in his own right.

The carols are not performed as a set on certain auspicious days, as is the pattern in England, but rather one carol is sung for each day of the twelve days of Christmas. Nor are (or were) the carols sung as part of an itinerant house-visiting tradition, but solely within the context of the celebration of the Mass, whilst Communion is being taken, at the Catholic Parish Church of St Mary's in Kilmore. Whereas in the nineteenth century other villages in Wexford had closely related traditions, these had disappeared before the First World War, so that Kilmore is nw the only village in Ireland to uphold such a tradition.

The Original Carol Collections
The origins of the Wexford carolling are closely associated with two collections, which took the form of "garlands". The first is of considerable age, being compiled and very probably written by Luke Waddinge, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ferns (the Diocese which included Wexford), and published in Ghent in France in 1684. - A Smale Garland of Pious and Godly Songs, Composed by a devout Man, for the Solace of his Freinds and neighbours in their afflictions. The title page includes a verse (a 'posy'):

The sweet and the sower
The nettle and the flower
The Thorne and the Rose
This Garland Compose.

The garland, which was published in the aftermath of severe Catholic repression in Ireland, comprises several religious verses together with poems written for the disinherited gentry of County Wexford, and others relating to the Popish Plat. Significantly, it also contains eleven Christmas songs, two of which are sung to this day in Kilmore ('St Stephen's Day Carol' and 'Song for New Year's Day'), whilst a third, 'On Christmass Night all Christians sing' is the earliest text for the carol known as 'The Sussex Carol'. These carols proved to be very popular and the Smale Garland was reprinted in London in 1728, and again in Drogheda in 1731.

The second collection. which dates from 1728, is A New Garland, containing Songs for Christmas, which was compiled by Rev'd William Devereux (1696-1771), who was born in Ring, Tacumshane. He later became the Parish Priest of Drinagh )now Piercetown); having no chapel, he said Mass in a sheltered corner of a field. He had a 'rich voice' and entertained friends with songs from Spain, which he had learned whilst studying for the priesthood in Salamanca.

The New Garland contained three of the carols from the Smale Garland, two of which are the ones noted above as being part of the Kilmore tradition. The other 'Kilmore' carols which Devereux included are

'The Darkest Midnight',
'Christmas Day Is Come',
'Song for St John's Day',
'Song for the Holy Innocents',
'St Sylvester's Day;,
'Song of Jerusalem', and
'Song for Twelfth Night'.

Another inclusion which the Kilmore carollers sing, though it is not considered to be exclusive to their village, is 'The Enniscorthy Carol' - 'Good people all this Christmas time'.

Although there is no known copy of Devereux's original New Garland extant, several versions of it survive, copied into later manuscripts. There are also records of carol singing in Wexford dating from this time in Killane, Mayglass (Ballymore), lady's Island (Tacumshane), and Rathangan. The carols were introduced into Kilmore parish from 1751 onwards by Father Peter Devereux, and remarkably members of the Devereux family have been closely associated with the carols ever since. The voice of Liam Sheil's uncle, Jack Devreux (1910-1999), former leader of the carollers who sang for more than sixty years, is to be heard in a talk recorded and broadcast by RTE in 1982 (which we listened to). Liam's grandfather, also Jack devereux, sang for over fifty years.

LINKS:
Kilmore Carol Singers in the 1960s and 70s
Group of Kilmore carol singers during the 1960's:
James Reville, Johnny Devereux, Jack Busher, Tom Flynn, Paddy Busher, James Kehoe, Eddie Shiel.
The singers in 1972 of :
Jack Busher, Johnny Devereux, James Kehoe,  and James Reville, Jack Devereux, Liam Sheil.

Jack Devereux - a Legend in his own Lifetime  -  .pdf file
Ranson's article on the Kilmore carols, including some words and music  -  .pdf file
On Christmass Day 1678 - poem by Luke Wadding
Facsimile of Carol for New Year's Day, from Michael Murphy's ms.