Lyrics
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.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day;
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.
The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town.
But mark how all things came to pass;
From every door repelled, alas!
As long foretold, their refuge all
Was but a humble ox's stall.
There were three wise men from afar,
Directed by a glorious star,
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay;
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah lay,
They humbly cast them at His feet,
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.
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.
'Arise 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 the babe to find,
And as God's angel had foretold,
They did our Savior 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.
Public domain hymn text. Traditional Irish carol, author unknown.
The Story Behind the Hymn
The Wexford Carol takes its name from County Wexford in southeastern Ireland, where the carol survived primarily through oral tradition among local singers rather than through any early printed source, making its exact origins and age difficult to date with precision.
Some musicologists trace the carol's roots as far back as the twelfth century, though its earliest confirmed transcription dates only to the late nineteenth century, when Irish folk song collector William Grattan Flood wrote down a version he had learned from a local singer.
That gap, a possible medieval origin preserved almost entirely by memory for centuries before finally being recorded in writing, is fairly typical of Irish folk carols, which often survived through small, local singing traditions well outside the reach of formal church publishing.
The carol's narrative moves in careful order through the core Nativity story, first addressing 'good people' directly and asking them to 'consider well' what has happened, then narrating the angel's announcement to the shepherds in the fields.
Its gentle, modal melody, distinct from the brighter major-key tunes common to many English carols, gives the Wexford Carol a more solemn, contemplative character, closer in mood to plainchant than to festive caroling.
The carol experienced a significant revival in the twentieth century through recordings by both Irish traditional and international performers, introducing a carol once known mainly within a single Irish county to a much wider international audience.
Its survival through oral tradition alone for so long, without the support of an established hymnal or printed songbook, makes the Wexford Carol a notable example of how much of the broader Christmas carol tradition depended on ordinary singers simply remembering and passing songs along rather than on institutional preservation.
