The twelfth day of Christmas, and the one day of it that belonged to the women who had made the other eleven happen. The men took the housework; the women went out. It is a modest arrangement and it was not a modest thing — and unlike most of what is on this site, it is a custom that is currently getting stronger rather than weaker.
Nollaig na mBan is also called Little Christmas, and in English simply Old Christmas — which sounds like folklore and is actually arithmetic. Ireland kept Christmas on a day that then moved underneath it.
So the old Christmas Day and the Epiphany are the same date by coincidence, not by design — and the name Little Christmas means something different again in Scottish Gaelic, where Nollaig Bheag is New Year's Day.
Most of the old Irish calendar is in retreat. This one is not: it thinned in places through the twentieth century and has been taken up again, partly by the hospitality trade and substantially by women organising it themselves. A few of the shapes it took in 2024:
Women's Christmas, on 6 January — the Feast of the Epiphany and the twelfth day of Christmas. Traditionally the men of the house took on the household work for the day, giving the women of the house the day off, and women went visiting or gathered together. Goose was the meat served. It is also the day the Christmas decorations come down.
Because Christmas itself fell on the women. In a household where the cooking, the cleaning and the hosting through the twelve days were entirely a woman's work, the twelfth day was hers: the men took the housework and the women were let alone, or went out together.
6 January, every year — the same date as the Epiphany, and the last of the twelve days of Christmas.
It is a calendar accident. When Britain and Ireland changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, eleven days were dropped, so the old Christmas Day landed on 5 January. In 1800 the Julian calendar took a leap day the Gregorian did not, sliding it one more day onto 6 January, where it met the Epiphany. The two have coincided ever since.
Yes, and more than it was a generation ago. It faded in parts of the country and has come back: hotels and restaurants advertise for it, Dublin City Council ran a Nollaig na mBan festival in 2024, and over 2,400 women swam in the sea around Ireland that day to raise money for Women's Aid.
On 6 January. Leaving them up past the twelfth day of Christmas is held to be unlucky.
How widely Nollaig na mBan was kept, and exactly where, is not well recorded — the accounts say only “some parts of Ireland”. If it was kept in your parish and you know it was, that is worth having.
There is no photograph on this page because there is no free photograph of this day: Wren Day has been photographed for a century and Women's Christmas, being a day spent in kitchens and sitting rooms, has not. A stock picture of a Christmas tree would be a picture of nothing. If you have one of your own we would like to see it.
What did Women's Christmas look like in your house? Who came, what was eaten, whether the men really did the washing up. This is a custom whose history is mostly in kitchens rather than in books.
Add what you remember →The Irish year · Wren Day · St Patrick's Day · St Brigid, and the other women's day