Dhoon School's Manx Christmas
19 Dec 2014
Dhoon School Manx Christmas
Teacher Sarah Shimmin tells us about their very successful ‘Nollick Ghennal’ concert last month:
The Dhoon School had made a link with the Maughold Show [see below] and we thought it would be a good idea to round off the Island of Culture year with a 'Manx Christmas' concert. The children acted out scenes that showed people stopping work for 'Foolish Fortnight' and celebrating with a 'Jough y Nollick' drink and we also had a 'Kissing bush' scene as well.
In addition we set up a Christmas Eve church scene [Oie’ll Verrey] that finished with the ladies throwing dried peas at the unmarried men! Some of the children made a huge Tynwald Hill and dramatised the Hunt the Wren story, culminating in the whole school singing Hunt the Wren and many of the children performing the dance.
Manx elements were also combined with a traditional nativity at the end of the concert, so many of the Manx songs and tunes were played during this: The whole school singing “Tra va Ruggit Chreest” and “Yeesey Chreest”, the choir singing “The Lullaby of the Virgin Mary”, the folk group performing “Oikan ayns Bethlehem” and the violinists playing “Smuggler's Lullaby”. We combined girls' jig with an Irish jig as we have a prize winning Irish dancer here and this was also combined with “Hop tu Naa”, to get as many children dancing at once as we could. One of the highlights of the concert was the White Boys dance. The children accompanied the Manx tunes throughout on whistles, harps, bodhrans and violins, etc.
Jeant dy mie da Dhoon!!
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