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The Irish public health specialist and Chief Medical Officer, Professor Breda Smith, warned of a surge in flu cases, ahead of the 2022 Christmas festive season.
Professor Smith has confirmed that flu cases are up some 80% over the past 7 days, while Covid-19 infections have also increased considerably over the last three days.
Messaging on social media, she appealed to parents and guardians to consider getting the free nasal flu vaccine for their children.
Professor Smyth is urging people to stay at home, if they are experiencing flu-like symptoms, thus
preventing any spreading of this winter viruses.
She stated: “With Christmas just one week away, we are reporting a significant surge in flu cases, up 80% on last week’s numbers. We have a number of patients in ICU with flu this week, and unfortunately, none of them had have had their flu vaccine.
This year’s flu season seems to be having a severe impact on children in particular. In Australia 60 per cent of hospitalisations were among children. Flu is also causing a huge spike in child hospitalisations in Canada.
Covid cases have increased rapidly in the last three days. Test positivity is now almost one in five. On average, we are now seeing 75 new hospitalisations per day with Covid.”
Professor Smith further added: “We all know that vaccination saves lives. It decreases the chances of being infected and reduces the risk of severe illness from Covid-19 and flu. So please come forward and get yours.”
The song “Twelve Days of Christmas” is an English Christmas carol published around the beginning of 18th century. Its earliest first known version appeared in a children’s book called “Mirth With-out Mischief”.
A first edition of that latter publication, containing the song, was sold for $23,750 at a Sotheby’s auction in 2014.
Initially it was possibly a secular French song in origin and not a Catholic Carol as some would claim. Many people believe it was written by members of the Roman Catholics persuasion, who continued to practise their faith in secret, during the reign of the English Queen Elizabeth I, to thus avoid religious persecution.
Its lyrics are believed to have been written in an effort to teach young children the articles of the Roman Catholic faith, without drawing the attention of Queen Elizabeth’s officials. Thus the song uses imagery, to help children to remember articles of faith.
To the non-religious person, the song merely represents the giving of expensive gifts during each of the twelve days of Christmas, courtesy of, as the song state, “my true love”.
Many people also believe that the song was intended to be a ‘memory and forfeits’ game, where players would have to recite a verse and with an agreement by those taking part to pay some sort of light-hearted penalty, like the giving of a token or kiss, if they failed to remember the gifts in the correct order.
Personally, I have never heard it sung in any Christian Church, but to many religious believers it represents a ‘Christianity code’ to secretly pass on certain Christian ideology, with the various 12 gifts meaning as follows:-
- Partridge = Jesus Christ, the Son of God whose birthday we celebrate on the first day of Christmas. Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge, a bird that will die to protect its young. The partridge in a pear tree is therefore symbolic of Christ being crucified on the Cross.
- Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments.
- French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, The Theological Virtues.
- Calling Birds = The Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists.
- Gold Rings = The First Five Books of the Old Testament.
- Geese A-laying = The Six Days of Creation.
- Swans A-swimming = The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
- Maids A-milking = The Eight Beatitudes.
- Ladies Dancing = The Nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit. [Fruit of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control].
- Lords A-leaping = The Ten Commandments.
- Pipers Piping = The Eleven Faithful Apostles.
- Drummers Drumming = The Twelve Points of Doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed.
Note: The 12 days of Christmas are commonly thought of as being from December 25th; the birth date of Jesus Christ, to January 5th; the supposed arrival date of the “Three Wise Men” or Magi, [Latter 3 priests believed to be of the Zoroastrianism faith, an Iranian religion, and one of the world’s oldest organized faiths].
A Song For A Sunday.
Vocals: Alan Jackson.
Gospel Song Lyrics: Carl L. Trivette.
I Want To Stroll Over Heaven With You
If I surveyed all the good things that come to me from above,
If I count all the blessings from the storehouse of love,
I’d simply ask for a favour of him beyond mortal king,
And I’m sure that he’d grant it again.
I want to stroll over Heaven with you some glad day,
When all our troubles and heartaches are vanished away.
Then we’ll enjoy the beauty where all things are new,
I want to stroll over Heaven with you.
So many places of beauty we long to see here below,
But time and treasures have kept us from making plans as you know,
But come the morning of the rapture together we’ll stand anew,
While I stroll over Heaven with you.
I want to stroll over Heaven with you some glad day,
When all our troubles and heartaches are vanished away.
Then we’ll enjoy the beauty where all things are new,
I want to stroll over Heaven with you.
I want to stroll over Heaven with you.
END
It was with great sadness that we learned of the death, today Saturday 17th December 2022, of Mrs Alice (Allie) Hyland (née Gahan), Kickham Place, Mullinahone, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.
Mrs Hyland; in her 92nd year, passed away while in the care of staff at Trinity Care, Drakelands House Nursing Home, Drakelands, Co. Kilkenny.
Her passing is most deeply regretted by her loving family, extended relatives, neighbours and friends.
Requiescat in pace.
Funeral Arrangements.
The earthly remains of Mrs Hyland will repose on Sunday evening, December 18th, at Brett’s Funeral Home, No.6 Kickham Street, Mullinahone, Thurles, from 7:00pm until 8:00pm.
Her remains will be received into the Church of St. Michael, Mullinahone, Thurles, to further repose for Requiem Mass on Monday morning, December 19th, at 11:00am; followed by interment immediately afterwards in Isertkieran Cemetery, Ballinacloughy, Mullinahone, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.
The extended Hyland family wish to express their appreciation for your understanding at this difficult time and have made arrangements for those wishing to send messages of condolence, to use the link shown HERE.
Suaimhneas síoraí dá h-anam dílis.
The Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War actually around Christmas 1914.
Truces between British and German units in fact can be dated to early November 1914, around the time that the war of manoeuvre ended. Rations were brought up to the front line always after dusk and soldiers on both sides noted a period of peace, while they collected their food.
One unusual phenomenon that grew in intensity was music; in peaceful sectors, it was not uncommon for units to sing in the evenings, sometimes deliberately with an eye towards entertaining or gently taunting their opposite numbers.
Roughly 100,000 British and German troops were involved in the informal cessations of hostility along the Western Front. The Germans celebrated by singing Christmas carols, with the British responded by singing carols of their own.
On Christmas Day, Brigadier-General Walter Congreve, commander of the 18th Infantry Brigade, stationed near Neuve Chapelle, wrote a letter recalling the Germans declared a truce for the day. One of his men bravely lifted his head above the parapet and others from both sides walked onto no man’s land. Officers and men shook hands and exchanged cigarettes and cigars, one of his captains “smoked a cigar with the best shot in the German army”, the latter no more than 18 years old.
In December 1915, there were orders by the Allied commanders to forestall any repeat of the previous Christmas truce. Units were encouraged to mount raids and harass the opposing line, whilst communicating with the enemy was discouraged by artillery barrages along the front line throughout the day. However, a small number of brief truces occurred despite this prohibition.
On the German side, a general order from December 29th, 1914 had already forbade fraternisation with the enemy, warning German troops that “every approach to the enemy…will be punished as treason”.
Silent Night (Christmas 1915)
Vocals: Celtic Thunder.
Lyrics: Cormac MacConnell.
1915 on Christmas Day,
On the western front the guns all died away,
And lying in the mud on bags of sand,
We heard a German sing from no man’s land.
He had tenor voice so pure and true.
The words were strange but every note we knew.
Soaring or the living dead and dammed,
The German sang of peace from no man’s land.
They left their trenches and we left ours,
Beneath tin hats smiles bloomed like wild flowers.
With photos, cigarettes, and pots of wine,
We built a soldier’s truce on the front line.
Their singer was a lad of twenty one.
We begged another song before the dawn,
And sitting in the mud and blood and fear
He sang again the song all longed to hear.
Silent night, no cannons roar.
A King is born of peace for evermore.
All’s calm, all’s bright,
All brothers hand in hand,
In 19 and 15 in no man’s land.
And in the morning all the guns boomed in the rain,
And we killed them and they killed us again.
At night they charged we fought them hand to hand,
And I killed the boy that sang in no man’s land.
Silent night no cannons roar,
A King is born of peace for evermore.
All’s calm, all’s bright,
All brothers hand in hand,
And that young soldier sings,
And the song of peace still rings,
Though the captains and all the kings,
Built no man’s land.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
END
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