{"id":270599,"date":"2026-01-06T16:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/270599\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T16:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:48:10","slug":"pure-and-utter-bullshit-renowned-irish-folklorist-debunks-false-histories-and-stories-behind-nollaig-na-mban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/270599\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pure and utter bullshit\u2019 \u2013 Renowned Irish folklorist debunks \u2018false histories and stories\u2019 behind Nollaig na mBan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Michael Fortune pictured in his home. Pic: Jim Campbell\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/309edfc5-079b-466f-ba8f-f9f7e6f4f154.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Michael Fortune pictured in his home. Pic: Jim Campbell<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The nationally renowned folklorist Michael Fortune has hit out at \u201cinaccurate posts\u201d about Nollaig na mBan and says that while people are entitled to refer to it as they wish, where he grew up in Ballygarrett, Co Wexford, it was always \u201cLittle Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Michael was born in 1975 and would gather with his family every year and have another mini-Christmas dinner to mark the end of the 12 days of Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Fortune pictured in his home. Pic: Jim Campbell The nationally renowned folklorist Michael Fortune has hit out&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,4247,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-270599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-cillian-boggan","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}