Dublin 1910 Children from Sean Mc Dermott St tenements Seanie, Molly, Timmy. Mary and a few of their younger friends playing truant from school as they often did, today was a special day for these poor children the first Monday in December the children of the tenements borrowed their mothers knives often the only one and gathered old coal sacks from the dirty yard that housed the even dirtier privvy shared by a dozen families that existed in each 5 storey red brick crumbling tenement.
These children knew no comforts just cold damp rooms full of noise and smells of humanity existing in inhumane conditions.They were supposed to attend school but they rarely did they had no pencil or paper or parents that could help with home work so most days they spent on the footpaths outside their homes playing in the filth and learning to survive,
This Monday was different it shone above other winter days for it had a purpose the little gang of raggamuffins armed with their tools ran the street between Sean Mc Dermott St and the Ivy Gardens where they ran through the gates and down to the walls where the Holly bushes hung heavy with red berries this year.
They worked under cover of bigger trees til their dirty coal sacks were full and their arms stretched with their bounty.Next stop Moore St where the stallholder shouted their wares
"2 tay towls 3 p
6 ornges 6 p"
the children attached themselves to the friendlier womens stalls and piped in at the end of her words " holly get yer holly 3 p a bunch"
the kinder trader didnt mind the kids tagging on their sales pitch an odd intolerant one clipping their ears with a tay towl to move them on.
In Moore St tradition no one closed stalls til all the days merchandise was sold so was it for our little gang of holly traders and by 3pm all the holly was on its way to decorate the homes of those who could afford to spent money on titivating their homes and our friends had their Holly Hope pennies in the pockets of their threadbare winter coats.
Holly Hope money was called such cos it held the hope of these poor children that on xmas morn there might be some small treat for them just something that marked the day above the other endless days of dirt and hunger that they endured,
Home to mammies they went handing over the pennies that she would try to protect from daddies demanding any spare pennies for the demon drink until xmas week when these mammies would take the pennies back to Moore St and spend them on oranges and marbles maybe a timber toy a rag doll some little thing to brighten Christmas morn for their children.
These children of the tenements had learned from an early age that they could affect their lives by action, they didnt mind that the spark of happiness held in an orange or a few marbles had actually been provided by their own toil cos mammies had turned their simple pennies into treasures to savour on that one day,
They had never been told of Santa cos their mammies had no means of making gifts magically appear down a crumbling chimney but a tradition of Holly Hope had sustained the chidlhood fantasies of a happy Christmas morning for generations of tenement dwellers in many streets of inner city Dublin,
These children with little or no education often became workers respected for theirenergies and entrepreneurship having learned the value of endeavour early, a far cry from todays children ordering toys via an "Alexa shopping list "paid for with plastic with massive APR from the bank of mum and dad.
If you let your imagination free for a moment and imagine the tenements children on the dirty paths on xmas morning playing with their new marbles holding an orange and smelling it not going to eat it til they have satisfied their touch and smell and sight senses with it, the excitement the joy the treasures provided by their Holly Hope money gave them and compare this to so many of todays children ripping open gift wrapped toys under glitsy trees open discard open next one accumulating a mountain of packaging Gretta would surely frown upon and wonder if all the progress made in the last 120 years has given us the world we wanted or maybe it has given us the world we deserve!