Remembering Ireland at Christmas

A parish decree opposing the use of stockings, 1953. Dissent arises among elements within the church as a diocesan edict approves the use of stockings for home Christmas use. Up until this point, it had become traditional for families to place cloth caps near the giant Virgin Mary in their lounge, to be filled overnight with bone pills, draught excluders and medicated bandages. Deemed “way too sexy” by prudish clerics, many feared that stockings, or any mention of the lower, smuttier body parts, would loosen public morals. The introduction of stockings was wildly popular, although some of the clerics’ fears appear to have been well-founded; newspapers of the time are awash with stories of people waking up to find stockings filled with brassieres, randy mags and annulment papers.