On this day in 1988, The Irish Times was carrying the usual seasonal interviews with people who had come home for Christmas. One of them, the actor Jeananne Crowley, said: “I’m listening to Gay Byrne talking to other emigrants who sadly won’t be home for Christmas – people away in Germany, in Japan – and I’m nearly in tears.”
What she had been listening to was one of the distinctive rituals of the Irish Christmas: the Gay Byrne radio show’s Christmas phone call. It was as much of a seasonal ceremony as carols or midnight Mass. And to remember it is to remember how profound the sense of separation used to be.
For many Irish families, phone calls to faraway places like the United States or Australia or even to European countries were just too expensive. Even for those who could afford it, making a call was an awkward business.
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