Thurles, Co. Tipperary Christmas 2020.

May we here at Thurles.Info take this opportunity to wish everyone at home and abroad a very happy Christmas, especially those, who for one reason or another, have been unable to travel due to the present Covid-19 pandemic.

Our slideshow will hopefully carry a reminder of previous Christmas’s spent amongst us, and we look forward to welcoming you all back in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, Please Do Stay Safe.

Figgy Pudding:

“Oh, bring us some figgy pudding” is one of the traditional lines in the lyrics associated with “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”, our second song used in our video slideshow shown above.

Figgy pudding possibly first originated in the 14th-century, (referred to in 1390), as a way principally to preserve food and was initially served as a fasting meal in preparation for the Christmas season.

Beef and mutton were mixed with raisins and prunes, wines and spices and sometimes with eggs. When grains were finally added it gained the look of porridge, bearing the names “Frumenty, Frumentee, Furmity, Fromity, or Fermenty.”

In the early 15th century, the ingredients mutated into “Plum Pottage”. A mix of meats, grains, vegetables, fats, spices and fruits, most notably raisins and currants, and same were packaged like huge sausages inside animal stomachs and intestines, (some similarities with Haggis traditionally of Scottish origin and going back to 1430), to be stored until it was served as part of the traditional Celtic Christmas meal usually on Christmas Eve.

“Plum Pottage” was not always associated with Christmas, but was also connected with Mothering Sunday, (i.e. in late spring), and with sheep-shearing (i.e. held in June).

This Christmas styled dessert was banned in the mid-16th century. by Puritans (English Protestants), under Oliver Cromwell, but was reinstated as a Christmas pudding by King George I, in the early 18th century. Many Puritans objected to the Popish associations of Christmas and to the excesses of enjoyment associated, such as lavish eating, play-acting, gambling and dancing.

Figs have never actually been an official ingredient of ‘figgy pudding‘, but may have been briefly included from time to time, thus inspiring the name.