Week ending 29th September 2015
Did I ever tell you about the night I slept in a field with a hundred thousand women? I have used that line a couple of times to start a sermon, and it certainly got attention. It is not a very politically correct thing to say nowadays, but I don’t mind breaking through the PC barrier at the moment because I am on annual holidays. As it happens there were a hundred thousand men in the same field on the night in question, as we awaited the arrival of Pope John Paul 11 to Ballybrit Racecourse in Galway on the last Sunday in September 1979. As someone who has lived for more than twenty-five thousand days and nights I am surprised to find that I have spent only about thirty nights of my life in the open air. Nights climbing Croagh Patrick come to mind, as well as fair days on the roads to Balla or Castlebar, though on those occasions I would have had a few hours sleep before rising at about three o’clock in the morning. There were a few nights at vigils in Knock or on the eve of the pattern day of Saint Caomhán on the Aran Island of Inis Oirr. The night in Galway racecourse was a festive occasion. Many people in Mayo journeyed to Knock the following day, but as I was a curate in Conamara, my focus was on Galway with a group from Carraroe (An Cheathrú Rua) youth club. It is hard to believe that those then teenagers are grandmothers and grandfathers now, or that some have passed away. I had spent the Saturday at a wedding Mass in Carraroe and reception in Salthill before returning for evening Masses in the parish – Sunday masses had been dispensed with nationally for the Papal visit. We set out relatively early from Galway, found our ‘corral’ and stretched out on bales of hay to await the dawn. Memory may be clouded by time, but I recall a great sense of anticipation as well as much banter and laughter as the time approached for the Pope’s arrival. His helicopter came into view and circled around to give everyone a view of the papal hand raised in blessing before it landed. There were five or six corrals between our group and the big altar, but as it was well raised up we got fairly good views as Mass started. The racecourse rocked when he announced: “Young people of Ireland, I love you.” The rest is a blur, the movements of a vast crowd, the slow progress of traffic, eventually home, fatigued but happy. The visit has been well analysed down through the years. Some people probably expected too much from it, but it was what it was, an exciting and upraising time for many people. I have little doubt but that Pope Francis would get a similar reception, as he has managed to reach many people on the margains, those who feel alienated as well as those who are regular church attenders. Much has changed in Ireland for the better in the intervening years, despite the scandals in church and State. The 1979 visit took place a couple of months after the massacre in Mullaghmore and other similar atrocities. Whatever other problems we have, and they are many, we have, despite recent hiccups in the process, relative peace. Thanks be to God and to those of all political parties who have worked hard for it.
Week ending 22nd September 2015
Cooking has come a long way since I first learned to boil an egg. Well, cooking itself has not changed that much, but the language used in connection with it has changed hugely. The idea of sweating an onion in my younger days would have conjured up an image of carrying around a peeled onion beneath your shoulder socket for days and nights. Not an appetising prospect for those expected to eat it. Even now when I read a recipe which involves the sweating of onions I instinctively reach for the deoderant. It is bad enough that onions bring tears to our eyes. Why should we have to make them sweat out their flavour as well?
One of the advantages of spending years as a clergyman on offshore islands was that it gave a person time to learn to cook on a trial and error basis. With a small population/congregation, there was often not much else to do compared to this day and age. Dependance on boats for deliveries also reduced the number and kind of ingredients readily available. Making the best of what you had was an ideal discipline. It meant the ability to conjure up a meal from whatever you could lay your hands on. I remember frying tinned spam with garlic and butter in order to try and put a better taste on it when the ferry from Galway, the Naomh Éanna, failed to travel for a couple of weeks at a time due to inclement weather.
There were always cockles and mussels to fall back on if things became really scarce. I sometimes brought firelighters, turf and coal with a pan in a plastic bag to the shore. While the fire was lighting up and the seawater heating a sweaty onion in the saucepan, I gathered shellfish and tossed them into the boiling water. I soon learned that fesh water worked better as the fish was already salty. Apart from minor problems with sand and seaweed, a hearty repast could be eaten. The best part was that there was no washing up in those long lost days before dishwashers arrived to take away the trauma of having to wet the hands in sudsy water
I recall those times now that I am back patrolling the shorelines of South Conamara. I think I have already told you about the nine beaches in the half-parish of Carna, one of which I used to walk most days with my millennium dog Mocca until her fifteen years plus caught up with her earlier this year . Sea-rods had replaced the sticks she carried through Tourmakeady wood in the first ten years of her life. She braved the tide in hot or cold weather, even doing so during frost and snow. The only encouragement she needed was to have a sea-rod fired in ahead of her. A number of people have offered me pups since, but there is such a thing as being irreplaceable. Apart from the work involved with a pup, I would have to reach my mid-eighties to care for it as long as the last one, and that would probably be a decade too far.
I always presumed that seawater helped rid a dog of its fleas, There is a kind of modern day parable which comparea a fox getting rid of its fleas and Jesus getting rid of the sins of the world through baptism. It is said that a fox rids itself of fleas by backing slowly, big tail first, into water. When the fleas have crawled or hopped on to its nose to avoid the rising water it quickly ducks underneath the surface and leaves the fleas to sink or swim. This can compare well with baptism by total immersion, carrying as it does the notion of going underneath with Christ in death and rising cleansed with him in resurrection. There is a sermon even in a flea.
One of the advantages of spending years as a clergyman on offshore islands was that it gave a person time to learn to cook on a trial and error basis. With a small population/congregation, there was often not much else to do compared to this day and age. Dependance on boats for deliveries also reduced the number and kind of ingredients readily available. Making the best of what you had was an ideal discipline. It meant the ability to conjure up a meal from whatever you could lay your hands on. I remember frying tinned spam with garlic and butter in order to try and put a better taste on it when the ferry from Galway, the Naomh Éanna, failed to travel for a couple of weeks at a time due to inclement weather.
There were always cockles and mussels to fall back on if things became really scarce. I sometimes brought firelighters, turf and coal with a pan in a plastic bag to the shore. While the fire was lighting up and the seawater heating a sweaty onion in the saucepan, I gathered shellfish and tossed them into the boiling water. I soon learned that fesh water worked better as the fish was already salty. Apart from minor problems with sand and seaweed, a hearty repast could be eaten. The best part was that there was no washing up in those long lost days before dishwashers arrived to take away the trauma of having to wet the hands in sudsy water
I recall those times now that I am back patrolling the shorelines of South Conamara. I think I have already told you about the nine beaches in the half-parish of Carna, one of which I used to walk most days with my millennium dog Mocca until her fifteen years plus caught up with her earlier this year . Sea-rods had replaced the sticks she carried through Tourmakeady wood in the first ten years of her life. She braved the tide in hot or cold weather, even doing so during frost and snow. The only encouragement she needed was to have a sea-rod fired in ahead of her. A number of people have offered me pups since, but there is such a thing as being irreplaceable. Apart from the work involved with a pup, I would have to reach my mid-eighties to care for it as long as the last one, and that would probably be a decade too far.
I always presumed that seawater helped rid a dog of its fleas, There is a kind of modern day parable which comparea a fox getting rid of its fleas and Jesus getting rid of the sins of the world through baptism. It is said that a fox rids itself of fleas by backing slowly, big tail first, into water. When the fleas have crawled or hopped on to its nose to avoid the rising water it quickly ducks underneath the surface and leaves the fleas to sink or swim. This can compare well with baptism by total immersion, carrying as it does the notion of going underneath with Christ in death and rising cleansed with him in resurrection. There is a sermon even in a flea.
Week ending 15th September 2015
The high tides of the Autumn equinox will have seawater lapping at the perimiter wall of Cárna church next weekend, without being of any particular threat to the church itself. While the building is at the end of a bay, the water is relatively shallow with lots of large rocks strewn around, which tend to dissipate any buildup of flooding from the combination of a southerly gale and a high tide. The church has stood there since before the Great Famine of the eighteen forties, so I hope it is not going to start flooding on my watch. Incidentally it was built, or at least the building work was organised by a priest involved in providing six churches for the Archdiocese of Tuam, Father Peter Conway. He was responsible too for Saint Mary’s Church, Partry, in the last parish in which I served. Naming the churches in honour of Our Lady reflects a deep devotion on Fr Conway’s part, as there must have been pressure to name Carna’s church after the local saint, MacDara.
Most of Carna Bay almost empties itself of water at low tide. It goes from lapping at the wall that surrounds the church to looking as if the Bay has taken a deep breath and swallowed all the sea-water. All that can be seen is yellow-brown seaweed and scattered rocks. This gives seaweed gatherers a great opportunity in spring to cut the most valuable weed and build square ‘cimíns’ which are floated on to a slipway to be loaded by a grab on to lorries or trailers for the local seaweed plant, Aramara in Cill Chiarán. The coming and going of the tide reminds me of saying Mass onetime on Carraroe’s coral strand at the beginning of a regatta, Féile an Dóilín many years ago. I stood at the altar-table with my back to the sea, the congregation gathered on the sloping strand, shaped like a small amphitheatre, in front of me. The tide rose slowly behind me, the best recipe I have seen yet for a fast Mass.
The tide is often in my thoughts and conversation as I sit with families by the bedsides of loved ones approaching death. The biggest difference I find between this and previous parishes is the presence of a fifty bed nursing home which is situated as close to the tide as Carna church is.. I have mentioned before that I have had more sick calls since arriving here than in the other forty years or so of my priesthood.. The Nursing Home gives wonderful service to a community situated about eighty kilometres or fifty miles from Galway hospitals. People can grow old and die with dignity within easy reach of their families. It also provides daycare on a Wednesday for those who are ill, aged or housebound. As most people in the Nursing Home are native Irish speakers, the presence of staff who can communicate easily with them is also very important.
Sitting for hours by death-beds over the years has helped me to get to know a number of families, as stories were told and memories shared. Thoughts turned from time to time to the tides and the influence they have on our lives, unknown to many of us. I had heard in previous coastal parishes that a person is most likely to slip away from this life as the tide turned. This has to do with the magnetism of the moon, which affects us as well of course when we are not anywhere near the sea. Death comes in its own time, but in my experience, more often with the turn of the tide than in between. That said, the most contented death I have witnessed was in my first posting, in Inis Oirr in the Aran Islands. A woman asked for her dúidín, her clay pipe, and proceeded to puff her way into eternity.
Most of Carna Bay almost empties itself of water at low tide. It goes from lapping at the wall that surrounds the church to looking as if the Bay has taken a deep breath and swallowed all the sea-water. All that can be seen is yellow-brown seaweed and scattered rocks. This gives seaweed gatherers a great opportunity in spring to cut the most valuable weed and build square ‘cimíns’ which are floated on to a slipway to be loaded by a grab on to lorries or trailers for the local seaweed plant, Aramara in Cill Chiarán. The coming and going of the tide reminds me of saying Mass onetime on Carraroe’s coral strand at the beginning of a regatta, Féile an Dóilín many years ago. I stood at the altar-table with my back to the sea, the congregation gathered on the sloping strand, shaped like a small amphitheatre, in front of me. The tide rose slowly behind me, the best recipe I have seen yet for a fast Mass.
The tide is often in my thoughts and conversation as I sit with families by the bedsides of loved ones approaching death. The biggest difference I find between this and previous parishes is the presence of a fifty bed nursing home which is situated as close to the tide as Carna church is.. I have mentioned before that I have had more sick calls since arriving here than in the other forty years or so of my priesthood.. The Nursing Home gives wonderful service to a community situated about eighty kilometres or fifty miles from Galway hospitals. People can grow old and die with dignity within easy reach of their families. It also provides daycare on a Wednesday for those who are ill, aged or housebound. As most people in the Nursing Home are native Irish speakers, the presence of staff who can communicate easily with them is also very important.
Sitting for hours by death-beds over the years has helped me to get to know a number of families, as stories were told and memories shared. Thoughts turned from time to time to the tides and the influence they have on our lives, unknown to many of us. I had heard in previous coastal parishes that a person is most likely to slip away from this life as the tide turned. This has to do with the magnetism of the moon, which affects us as well of course when we are not anywhere near the sea. Death comes in its own time, but in my experience, more often with the turn of the tide than in between. That said, the most contented death I have witnessed was in my first posting, in Inis Oirr in the Aran Islands. A woman asked for her dúidín, her clay pipe, and proceeded to puff her way into eternity.
Week ending 8th September 2015
We often hear of the patience of Job, but the patience of Jesus with his disciples often amazes me even more. He obviously realised that he had a difficult task in getting his message across to them, to explain whom he was and what he wanted to achieve. His apostles would seem to have been an easy-going lot who seemed happy to have a break from fishing and other occupations, but who must have wondered from time to time what in the name of God they had let themselves in for.
Their questions, as reported in the gospels betray a naivety and lack of understanding of what Jesus was about, but he never resorted to asking: “Are you stupid, or what?” He knew that for the most part their hearts were in the right place. They would do anything for him in so far as they could, and despite some hiccups around the time of his crucifixion, they eventually did. They died for their faith, but by then they understood what he was about. It was not to wrest back the political kingdom of Israel from the Roman Empire, but to try and organise a different kind of kingdom, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.
That ideal is as far from being achieved now as it was then, but in the meantime millions have had a shot at it, and have had led better lives as they tried to follow the man from Gallilee. Some succeeded more than others and we call the most obvious of them saints. Some managed to do more harm than good as many reports in recent times have shown us. The vast majority struggled to do their best with the hand that life dealt them/ In the end it is only the just judge, the one who knows the heart, that can tell how it all went.
One of the greatest sources of consolation and inspiration for every struggling Christian is to look at the apostles of Jesus. Judas betrayed him. Peter denied him. James and John sent their mother to ask him for a bit of pull for her sons, “the two best places in his kingdom. They all chickened out on the night he was arrested and went into hiding. Only John had the courage to follow him to Calvary. Thomas, in a “seeing is believing mood” and who could blame him, doubted the resurrection. Wjth friends like these...
But then there was another side to the apostles. There was Peter’s powerful declaration of faith: “You are the Christ.” (Mark 8:29) There was his reply to Jesus’ question in a recent Sunday gospel: “Will you too go away?” The big fisherman answered: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe and we know you are the holy one of God.”(John 6: 69) With a declaration of faith like that, Peter didn’t need to sing for his spiritual supper for a very long time.
The cowards of Calvary turned out to be the brave-hearts of Pentecost. Inspired by the spirit of the risen Jesus, the Holy Spirit, they put their lives on the line for Jesus and his message. They had come a long way from the naive fishermen who had dreamt of fame and prestige when they hitched themselves to the Jesus bandwagon. Almost two thousand years later they are remembered in ways they would never have dreamt of.
Their questions, as reported in the gospels betray a naivety and lack of understanding of what Jesus was about, but he never resorted to asking: “Are you stupid, or what?” He knew that for the most part their hearts were in the right place. They would do anything for him in so far as they could, and despite some hiccups around the time of his crucifixion, they eventually did. They died for their faith, but by then they understood what he was about. It was not to wrest back the political kingdom of Israel from the Roman Empire, but to try and organise a different kind of kingdom, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.
That ideal is as far from being achieved now as it was then, but in the meantime millions have had a shot at it, and have had led better lives as they tried to follow the man from Gallilee. Some succeeded more than others and we call the most obvious of them saints. Some managed to do more harm than good as many reports in recent times have shown us. The vast majority struggled to do their best with the hand that life dealt them/ In the end it is only the just judge, the one who knows the heart, that can tell how it all went.
One of the greatest sources of consolation and inspiration for every struggling Christian is to look at the apostles of Jesus. Judas betrayed him. Peter denied him. James and John sent their mother to ask him for a bit of pull for her sons, “the two best places in his kingdom. They all chickened out on the night he was arrested and went into hiding. Only John had the courage to follow him to Calvary. Thomas, in a “seeing is believing mood” and who could blame him, doubted the resurrection. Wjth friends like these...
But then there was another side to the apostles. There was Peter’s powerful declaration of faith: “You are the Christ.” (Mark 8:29) There was his reply to Jesus’ question in a recent Sunday gospel: “Will you too go away?” The big fisherman answered: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe and we know you are the holy one of God.”(John 6: 69) With a declaration of faith like that, Peter didn’t need to sing for his spiritual supper for a very long time.
The cowards of Calvary turned out to be the brave-hearts of Pentecost. Inspired by the spirit of the risen Jesus, the Holy Spirit, they put their lives on the line for Jesus and his message. They had come a long way from the naive fishermen who had dreamt of fame and prestige when they hitched themselves to the Jesus bandwagon. Almost two thousand years later they are remembered in ways they would never have dreamt of.
Week ending 1st September 2015
Among the things that surprised me when I returned to the sea-shore in Carna five years ago after fifteen years close to Lough Mask in Tourmakeady was the constant movement of the tides. Although I had previously spent twenty-four years in the Aran Islands and Conamara I had just forgotten the tide that waits for no-one. The shoreline is never the same from day to day, hour to hour. I was amused some time ago to see an old toaster lodged between rocks when the tide was out. There is a story there: What kind of fish likes to have toast with breakfast? From such observations are imaginations fired and stories, children’s stories in particular, born.
As I drove around Conamara on my return, I realised that there was something else that I had missed for many years. I had forgotten the purple and gold in the landscape at this time of the year, and I am revelling in seeing it again this Autumn. When I look at articles I wrote in Irish after moving from Conamara to Inis Meain in the Aran Islands in 1987 I find references to those colours and how much I missed them in the limestone grey islands. Don’t get me wrong. The islands have a distinctive beauty, and I often stood for hours watching giant waves thundering against the cliffs. But Conamara has its own breath-taking beauty particularly at this time of the year.
Just over five years ago I used the line ‘Look thy last on all things lovely’ in my weekly article as I prepared to leave that then rhododendrened landscape, in which the fuchsia is now in full bloom. I realise once again how lucky I have been in the places in which I have lived as a priest, each with its particular beauty of sea or lake, mountain or forest. The real beauty is in the people, but the landscape helps. Wise word from the psalms come to mind: ‘I lift up my eyes to the mountains,’ or ‘Near restful waters he leads me, to revive my drooping spirit.’ The spirit seldom droops when surrounded by beautiful scenery.
Someone will surely remind me that: ‘You can’t eat scenery’ but it has helped put a few euro into pockets around the west in recent years. I am told that the “Wild Atlantic Way” has been very successful as a tourist initiative. UTV, TG4 and RTÉ have based programmes on it recently, and because of the length of the coastline, were only scratching the surface of what it is possible to show the public, nationally and internationally. When I heard of the concept first I went into defensive mode: “Who are they calling “Wild?” The people of the west coast of Ireland are among the mildest in the world. What about “The Mild Atlantic Way?” MAW. They wouldn’t even have to change the logos on the signposts. The winter storms and sea surges soon proved to me that whatever about the people, the wind, waves and sea surges are certainly wild. So “The Wild Atlantic Way” is here to stay despite some of its signposts tending to send people the wrong way, but that is, I hope, just a teething problem.
The light in the west has drawn artists and painters for many years, Paul Henry to Achill, Charles Lamb to Carraroe, Sean Keating to Aran, Brian Bourke to Connemara, Evie Hone, and many others. Those of us who live here take it for granted most of the time, but there are days when our eyes are opened, days in which skies are big and blue and horizons stretch forever. Dank damp foggy days are usually followed by such epiphanies, in which for a while at least, all is well with the world and we wonder will the next one be half as good.
As I drove around Conamara on my return, I realised that there was something else that I had missed for many years. I had forgotten the purple and gold in the landscape at this time of the year, and I am revelling in seeing it again this Autumn. When I look at articles I wrote in Irish after moving from Conamara to Inis Meain in the Aran Islands in 1987 I find references to those colours and how much I missed them in the limestone grey islands. Don’t get me wrong. The islands have a distinctive beauty, and I often stood for hours watching giant waves thundering against the cliffs. But Conamara has its own breath-taking beauty particularly at this time of the year.
Just over five years ago I used the line ‘Look thy last on all things lovely’ in my weekly article as I prepared to leave that then rhododendrened landscape, in which the fuchsia is now in full bloom. I realise once again how lucky I have been in the places in which I have lived as a priest, each with its particular beauty of sea or lake, mountain or forest. The real beauty is in the people, but the landscape helps. Wise word from the psalms come to mind: ‘I lift up my eyes to the mountains,’ or ‘Near restful waters he leads me, to revive my drooping spirit.’ The spirit seldom droops when surrounded by beautiful scenery.
Someone will surely remind me that: ‘You can’t eat scenery’ but it has helped put a few euro into pockets around the west in recent years. I am told that the “Wild Atlantic Way” has been very successful as a tourist initiative. UTV, TG4 and RTÉ have based programmes on it recently, and because of the length of the coastline, were only scratching the surface of what it is possible to show the public, nationally and internationally. When I heard of the concept first I went into defensive mode: “Who are they calling “Wild?” The people of the west coast of Ireland are among the mildest in the world. What about “The Mild Atlantic Way?” MAW. They wouldn’t even have to change the logos on the signposts. The winter storms and sea surges soon proved to me that whatever about the people, the wind, waves and sea surges are certainly wild. So “The Wild Atlantic Way” is here to stay despite some of its signposts tending to send people the wrong way, but that is, I hope, just a teething problem.
The light in the west has drawn artists and painters for many years, Paul Henry to Achill, Charles Lamb to Carraroe, Sean Keating to Aran, Brian Bourke to Connemara, Evie Hone, and many others. Those of us who live here take it for granted most of the time, but there are days when our eyes are opened, days in which skies are big and blue and horizons stretch forever. Dank damp foggy days are usually followed by such epiphanies, in which for a while at least, all is well with the world and we wonder will the next one be half as good.