For most of us Christmas Day is for spending with family and friends, but plenty of people will be at work tomorrow. UNA MULLALLYspeaks to some of them
Fr Martin Whelan
Galway Cathedral
“I’ll be down in the cathedral at about 8am. The sacristan would be there around 7.30am, setting up. The numbers would be up on Christmas Day, because for a lot of people it’s the only day they’d go to Mass all year. We have Mass at 8.30am, 10am, 11.15 and 12.30pm, so you’d be busy enough all morning, setting up for Mass. Then there’s a nursing home we visit – St Francis’s – close to the cathedral, so we’d go up and visit them. The 8.30am Mass is the quick one: you’re in and out; 10am is the children’s Mass, with the children’s choir; 11.15am is our High Mass, so we’d have the cathedral choir singing at that – there’s much more ceremony, so you’d be setting that up and getting it right – and then at 12.30pm we’d have a cantor and organ music. It’s just about getting them all right and seeing it run smoothly. There’s more chat, because you’re meeting more people, and we’d have the place decorated and dickied up more than usual. It’s a hectic morning, but we’re finished at about 1.30pm, and then I’d go home for Christmas dinner in Ardrahan.”
Brian Quinn
Simon Community, Cork
Brian Quinn, an outreach worker, spends Christmas Day in a Simon shelter for homeless people.
“I’d have a walk around town first thing, to see if there’s anyone sleeping rough and encourage them to come into the shelter. It’s quite similar to other days, but we’d have a proper Christmas dinner, and then it’s about spending time with people. Some don’t interact at all and keep to themselves, but it’s often a day you’d be interacting well with clients, because no off-licences are open.
“This is my third Christmas Day in a row. The last three there haven’t been people sleeping rough in the morning, but you have to make sure there aren’t, do a sweep around the city and be totally sure. Our cold-weather strategy started last week, so there’s a planned process to ensure there aren’t people sleeping out.
“Once in the morning I’ve ensured there’s no one sleeping rough, out of the 45 people in the emergency shelter you’d have men, women, couples, younger people, mostly local to Cork and about 10 to 12 from eastern Europe. The main thing that would crop up would be people who have children they’re now separated from, so you have that and the combination of the day that’s in it, with people feeling isolated. I start at 7.30am and finish at 4pm. Then another shift would come along. This year we’ll have a pool competition and will be playing cards – anything to keep people occupied to take their minds off the day. It can be a long boring day for a lot of people, so we’re just trying to fill people’s day.”
Barry O’Connor
Irish Coast Guard
Capt Barry O’Connor, who pilots a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter, is based in Waterford on Christmas Day. “I’m working in the morning, so basically we’re on call from 1pm Christmas Eve until 1pm on Christmas Day. Because we’re on call, we’d have to be in the airport within 20 minutes.
“The last two Christmas Days we were quite busy. Typically people might go for walks, perhaps building up an appetite for it over Christmas dinner, and they mightn’t be used to walking or properly dressed for the weather. They might have a fall, break a leg up the mountains or fall down a cliff. Then some people might go for Christmas swims who mightn’t be used to it, and can get a heart attack. In some cases, obviously, we’d be the only people able to get to that location.
“The Sikorsky S-61 is one of the biggest helicopters you’re going to get – it’s 10 tonnes of weight – and is a very capable aircraft. If people are going for walks in the mountains, they should be adequately dressed, make sure they tell someone what route they’re taking and when they’ll be back, and fully charge their mobile phones but don’t rely on them, as they could be in an area where there’s no signal.”
Geraldine Draper
Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin
Geraldine Draper, the hotel’s restaurant and in-room-dining manager, has worked on Christmas Day for the past decade.
“I’m generally in at about noon. At that stage we would have looked after breakfast for in-house guests and would oversee lunch and dinner reservations. Generally it’s a great day. This is our fourth year doing Christmas since we reopened. There are about nine working for lunch and nine for dinner, along with three hostesses and two supervisors. At the moment we have about 70 per cent in-house guests for Christmas, and 30 per cent would be repeat customers.
“I’ve worked it 10 years and I adore it. I think it’s great, as much as I miss my family. I have a tradition with my family where they bring my Christmas dinner in to me, with my mum’s gravy and everything. Generally all people do on Christmas Day is sit around and eat, have a nap in the afternoon and watch a movie, so at least it’s a day I’m being active and part of the team.”
Grainne McCabe
McCabe's Pharmacy, Malahide, Co Dublin
Grainne McCabe and her father, Roy, have worked every Christmas Day as long as she can remember.
“Every Christmas Day we’d have an emergency of some sort. We open between 11am and noon and would be very busy, so we usually stay open an extra hour. It’s usually emergencies or a lot of people who would have been in Temple Street overnight with very sick children and have prescriptions to fill.
“Last year we got a lot of D-Doc [the out-of-hours GP service] people, maybe people have got an infection on Christmas Eve or have come down suddenly quite ill. Then you get people visiting relatives in Dublin for a couple of days without their essential medicines. It’s a wide variety of things, so we really try and do our best for everyone.
“Myself and my father go down and work. I actually enjoy doing it, because people are in good form and really appreciate the service. It’s a benefit to people, and it’s nice to do it, because you know you are genuinely helping someone. I have my day with my family after, but it’s worthwhile to help those people first.”
Grainne Sullivan
Combe Women & Infants University Hospital, Dublin
Grainne Sullivan is the clinical midwife manager on the Coombe maternity hospital’s delivery suite.
“For me it’s about co-ordinating the labour ward. It can be as busy as any other day, because you can’t plan who’s going to come in in spontaneous labour. I’ve worked a lot of Christmas Days, and a lot of them are very pleasant. I’d work 7.30am to 8.30pm, so it’s a long day. When I come in there’s the handover from the night staff, and you figure out what the level of activity was, who’s in labour and what’s on the agenda.
“We have a tradition that if you delivered on Christmas night you’d get a little present of a Babygro. We have Christmas dinner with orange to drink, although they have all the trimmings down in the canteen. We corner off a section of our coffee room and doll it up, and all the staff working on Christmas Day do a Christkindl for €10, so we exchange gifts. You have student midwives leaving their families and coming in, so you try and make it as pleasant as possible on every level.
“The area that we work is lovely: it’s a great job. It’s fabulous to have a baby on any day of the year, but to have one on Christmas Day is fantastic. It’s a lovely occasion to deliver a baby.”
Tom Smith
Today FM, Dublin
Tom Smith is a freelance newsreader and reporter who’ll be doing the Christmas shift.
“I said to the person who does the roster that I don’t really mind doing around the Christmas Day period if I could be free for New Year’s, not thinking I’d be on Christmas Day and St Stephen’s Day, but I suppose you get what you ask for.
"I'm going to be editing and reading the news. My first bulletin is at 8am, and I'll be doing up until 1pm. I'll be in at 7am to prepare things. It's funny, I don't mind a huge amount, but my wife isn't exactly happy I won't be there in the morning. I've done it a couple of times before, and there's a kind of a nice feeling once you've done it. You feel you've earned your Christmas dinner, and you can actually put on Chris Rea's Driving Home for Christmasin the car. It definitely gives you a licence to listen to cheesy Christmas songs.
“Newswise, nothing really happens. You know that you’ll have a message from the President, and a message from the Pope, and then you’ll do a story about Santa for the kids. So it’s not a great news day.”
