Our sources

Every tradition on this site comes from a source you can check yourself. I start with the archives: the Schools' Collection on dúchas.ie, written down by schoolchildren across Ireland in the 1930s, and the folklife collections of the National Museum of Ireland. I open the record, copy the wording and note where it was recorded. If I can't find a custom in a source, it doesn't go on the site.

Sources our rituals cite

• Belief in Santa Claus seems to be dying out: a letter from the children of Ireland of 1938

  Travel Extra, 25 December 2025, quoting the Schools' Collection (Grangegeeth, Co. Meath; Adare, Co. Limerick; Tinure, Co. Louth)

  Cited in A candle in the window on Christmas Eve