Christmas at the Maginot Line, 1939

Being a sentimental fool, I like to put a up a Christmas song around this time of year for the day that'll be in it tomorrow. But this year is a bit special.

I found footage on You Tube of French soldiers celebrating Christmas in 1939, with a soundtrack of the great contemporary French singer of the time, Tino Rossi, singing Minuit, Chrétiens (O Holy Night) and Trois Anges Sont Venus. The footage of a army chaplain vesting and saying midnight mass in the Maginot Line is extraordinary. How many of those soldiers lived through what came in 1940? Maybe we don't have it so bad after all.

Nollaig shona daoibh go léir, agus go mbeirfimid beo fós ag an am seo arís.

Happy Christmas to All, from An Spailpín Fánach

No matter how much any of us believed that the boom couldn't last and that soft landings were spoken of more in hope than expection, I don't think anybody anticipated that the end would be so sudden, so jarring and severe. And the worst is yet to come, of course.

So in these cheery circumstances, maybe it's best to give thanks for what we do have instead of mourning what's lost and gone forever. Here's wonderful Renée Fleming singing O Holy Night - Nollag shona daoibh uilig, agus go mbéarfaimid go léir beo ag an am seo arís.







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