The habit of a midwinter festivity had come by the dawn of history (and probably very long before) to seem a natural one to the British, and not one to be eradicated by changes of political or religious fashion. ... It was general custom in pagan Europe to decorate spaces with greenery and flowers for festivals, attested wherever records have survived.

What is unique about Drogheda is the very large number of Protestants in the garrison and the fact that it's commanded, by and large, by Englishmen, who have come over from the English Civil War and are fighting in Ireland, and Cromwell is extraordinarily savage against these... Drogheda, after all, was a Protestant

The habit of a midwinter festivity had come by the dawn of history (and probably very long before) to seem a natural one to the British, and not one to be eradicated by changes of political or religious fashion. ... It was general custom in pagan Europe to decorate spaces with greenery and flowers for festivals, attested wherever records have survived.

It is also absolutely correct that some British folk customs have descended directly from pagan rituals, such ... the giving of presents and decoration of homes with greenery at midwinter.