The Fourth Day of Advent

The Wexford Carol (arr. Mark Hayes)

A traditional Irish Christmas Carol, sometimes called the Enniscorthy Carol as it was first collected by an musicologist in Enniscorthy, this tells the story of Christmas from the virgin birth, the announcement from the angels, the wise men, the shepherds, and the Bethlehem star, these things having been foretold hundreds of years earlier by God to the prophets and ultimately to the people, promising that a Saviour would be born to redeem the world.

Good people all, this Christmas time
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending His beloved Son.
And Mary, mother, she did pray
To God with love that Christmas Day.
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep
To whom God’s angels did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
‘Prepare and go, ‘ the angels said
‘To Bethlehem, be not afraid
For there you’ll find, this happy morn
A princely babe, sweet Jesus born.

With thankful heart and joyful mind
The shepherds went, this Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid
And by His side the virgin maid
Attending on the Lord of life
Who came on earth to end all strife.

Good people all, this Christmas time
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved Son.
And Mary, mother, she did pray
To God with love that Christmas day.
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

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