Week ending 25th August 2009 www.tourmakeady.com
I read an article in a national newspaper some time ago in which a journalist of some repute was taking a property developer to task for the use of the Irish language version of his name. There was no implication that the Gaelic name was to confuse or to cheat anyone, just the impression that it was some kind of snobbery, a kind of: “How dare he?” as if there is something wrong with an Irish person using the language of his or her ancestors.
As someone who uses the Irish version of his name I come across the same thing from time to time. When I submit a form with my name in Irish to some department or institution I am asked: “What is that in English?” Fair enough as a query out of interest in my genealogy, but there often seems to be resentment that I just can’t use the English version and get on with things without annoying anybody. I think everybody deserves the courtesy of having their name as they want it.
The interesting thing is that this never arises when dealing with people or companies outside Ireland. They take you as you are, name and all. In the world of writing I have had dealings with English, German, Romanian and Polish publishers and have never had difficulty with the way my name is spelt, sinéadh fadas included. Internet websites sometimes have difficulties with the stroke above the vowel, but that is just a technical, mechanical thing. People just accept my name as I want it to be.
Everyone with my Christian name is indebted to Irish golfer, Padraig Harrington for making our name accepted worldwide. Tiger Woods still calls him “Paddy” but most commentators have managed to get their tongues around the Irish version of Patrick. Although there are no “Pádraigs” in the English Premiership, the vast amount of different names and surnames from all over the world have made those who watch sport aware of variety, as well as people’s entitlement to their name.
Some of our Irish political commentators displayed their own snobbishness when Padraig Flynn was in politics, deliberately mispronouncing his name as if it was a burden to them to have to say it. Maybe it is time to introduce the concept of name-ism to go with racism and ageism so that people can be called by their names as they wish them to be. Of course this is not an issue on the same scale as racism, but it can make a difference to those concerned.
John the Baptist’s father, Zachariah had difficulty getting the name he wanted put on his son according to the gospel of Saint Luke (I: 57-66) An angel of God had asked him to call his son “John.” Zachariah had a problem because he had lost his voice in the Temple after suggesting that his wife, Elizabeth was too old to have a child. His family and friends were going to call the child after his father until his mother spoke up and said: “He is to be called John.” The in-laws were not too impressed so they got Zachariah to write down his own wish. He wrote “His name is John.” I’m glad he did. “Zachariah the Baptist” would never have had the same ring to it.
As someone who uses the Irish version of his name I come across the same thing from time to time. When I submit a form with my name in Irish to some department or institution I am asked: “What is that in English?” Fair enough as a query out of interest in my genealogy, but there often seems to be resentment that I just can’t use the English version and get on with things without annoying anybody. I think everybody deserves the courtesy of having their name as they want it.
The interesting thing is that this never arises when dealing with people or companies outside Ireland. They take you as you are, name and all. In the world of writing I have had dealings with English, German, Romanian and Polish publishers and have never had difficulty with the way my name is spelt, sinéadh fadas included. Internet websites sometimes have difficulties with the stroke above the vowel, but that is just a technical, mechanical thing. People just accept my name as I want it to be.
Everyone with my Christian name is indebted to Irish golfer, Padraig Harrington for making our name accepted worldwide. Tiger Woods still calls him “Paddy” but most commentators have managed to get their tongues around the Irish version of Patrick. Although there are no “Pádraigs” in the English Premiership, the vast amount of different names and surnames from all over the world have made those who watch sport aware of variety, as well as people’s entitlement to their name.
Some of our Irish political commentators displayed their own snobbishness when Padraig Flynn was in politics, deliberately mispronouncing his name as if it was a burden to them to have to say it. Maybe it is time to introduce the concept of name-ism to go with racism and ageism so that people can be called by their names as they wish them to be. Of course this is not an issue on the same scale as racism, but it can make a difference to those concerned.
John the Baptist’s father, Zachariah had difficulty getting the name he wanted put on his son according to the gospel of Saint Luke (I: 57-66) An angel of God had asked him to call his son “John.” Zachariah had a problem because he had lost his voice in the Temple after suggesting that his wife, Elizabeth was too old to have a child. His family and friends were going to call the child after his father until his mother spoke up and said: “He is to be called John.” The in-laws were not too impressed so they got Zachariah to write down his own wish. He wrote “His name is John.” I’m glad he did. “Zachariah the Baptist” would never have had the same ring to it.
Week ending 18th August 2009
As a student in St. Partick’s College Maynooth about forty years ago I attended a meeting in Trinity College, Dublin which included students from most of Ireland’s Universities. A firebrand speaker whose name escapes me now spoke eloquently and glowingly about the communist revolution which he seemed to give to understand was already happening. This came as news to me, and I wondered was it my time as a hothouse plant in the seminary that had left me immune to this reality of life.
I was hitching west the following day and I got a lift from Joe Foyle who still writes the occasional incisive letter to the papers. He was on his way to a Christus Rex Congress in Breaffy House. For a hitch-hiker this was as good a lift as anyone could get, right across the country. We got to talking about life and I told him of the fiery speaker I had heard in Trinity the previous night. He knew the man in question and told me he had heard he had landed a great job in business. “You won’t hear any more about the revolution from him,” he said, and I didn’t. For his own sake I hope he got out before the economic crash.
Sometimes when reading the Sunday papers I get the same feeling I had that long-ago gone night in Trinity College. I wonder has life passed me by and nobody has told me about it. I get this feeling when I read columnists who are scathing about religion and Roman Catholicism in particular, and give the impression that religion is completely a thing of the past. They seem to go out of their way to declare not only their own lack of belief but the foolishness of those who do believe. This, of course is their entitlement, but as Shakespeare might put it: “Methinks they do protest too much.”
I can understand such sentiment after the report of the Ryan Commission on abuse in reformatories, or the clerical child abuse soon to be reported in the examination of the Archdiocese of Dublin. The media in general played a pivotal part in exposing such scandals and deserve much credit for doing that. I have no quibble about such reporting, but I draw the line at the constant need of some to insult and to vilify. It is one thing for a person to declare their own faith or lack of it, but balance rather than venom would be expected from journalists and their editors.
Is there a need to insult on an ongoing basis the vast majority of Catholics who had nothing to do with these scandals? Does the deep faith shown in the rain and wind of Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday need to be vilified? Have the crowds who assemble for the Knock novena this week done anything to stir the poison in the pens of columnists in the national media? I am reminded of the remark I heard when results of the latest census showed a remarkably small number of atheists: “They must all be writing for the national newspapers.”
It is an unfortunate fact that many people now ask themselves on a Sunday: “Will I buy a paper, or will I have a good day?” They are tired of having what they hold dear insulted and vilified. Is it any wonder that we see stacks of unsold newspapers still on the shelves on Sunday evenings?
I was hitching west the following day and I got a lift from Joe Foyle who still writes the occasional incisive letter to the papers. He was on his way to a Christus Rex Congress in Breaffy House. For a hitch-hiker this was as good a lift as anyone could get, right across the country. We got to talking about life and I told him of the fiery speaker I had heard in Trinity the previous night. He knew the man in question and told me he had heard he had landed a great job in business. “You won’t hear any more about the revolution from him,” he said, and I didn’t. For his own sake I hope he got out before the economic crash.
Sometimes when reading the Sunday papers I get the same feeling I had that long-ago gone night in Trinity College. I wonder has life passed me by and nobody has told me about it. I get this feeling when I read columnists who are scathing about religion and Roman Catholicism in particular, and give the impression that religion is completely a thing of the past. They seem to go out of their way to declare not only their own lack of belief but the foolishness of those who do believe. This, of course is their entitlement, but as Shakespeare might put it: “Methinks they do protest too much.”
I can understand such sentiment after the report of the Ryan Commission on abuse in reformatories, or the clerical child abuse soon to be reported in the examination of the Archdiocese of Dublin. The media in general played a pivotal part in exposing such scandals and deserve much credit for doing that. I have no quibble about such reporting, but I draw the line at the constant need of some to insult and to vilify. It is one thing for a person to declare their own faith or lack of it, but balance rather than venom would be expected from journalists and their editors.
Is there a need to insult on an ongoing basis the vast majority of Catholics who had nothing to do with these scandals? Does the deep faith shown in the rain and wind of Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday need to be vilified? Have the crowds who assemble for the Knock novena this week done anything to stir the poison in the pens of columnists in the national media? I am reminded of the remark I heard when results of the latest census showed a remarkably small number of atheists: “They must all be writing for the national newspapers.”
It is an unfortunate fact that many people now ask themselves on a Sunday: “Will I buy a paper, or will I have a good day?” They are tired of having what they hold dear insulted and vilified. Is it any wonder that we see stacks of unsold newspapers still on the shelves on Sunday evenings?
Weekending 11th August 2009
I Googled the ‘Feast of The Assumption’ out of curiosity before starting this article. I found more than 75,000 entries, which did not surprise me, given the honour and affection and devotion in which Mary, mother of Jesus of Nazareth is held inside and outside the Roman Catholic world. She is revered by Muslims as well as Christians, and it is on the fifteenth of August, the Feast of the Assumption, more than any other day that she is honoured.
The biggest temptation the Internet presents to the writer or researcher is to take the lazy road, copy down a few lines or a page and make life easy for yourself. It is not as easy to take that route when a person announces that they have been surfing the web, as others quickly recognise where the content came from. So instead of dazzling you with downloaded facts, legends and traditions to do with Mary’s death and Assumption into Heaven as reported since the earliest Christian times I had better give you my own take on the subject.
In the Irish language the Feast of The Assumption became known as ‘Lá Fhéil Muire Mór sa bhFómhar,’ (The Autumn Feast of Mary, the great one.) In Irish too Mary has a name of her own – Muire which sets her apart from all others. Girls called after her were given the name Mary or May or Maureen, Máire or Muiread but the name ‘Muire’ was reserved for the mother of God.
The Feast of the Assumption sets Mary apart in another way, as the first human to achieve perfection, the sinless one assumed into Heaven so that her body would not undergo corruption. One of the dangers of setting someone apart in this way is that people might no longer think of Mary as one of their own. Pious pictures and statues can have this effect too in that she is seen as someone almost too beautiful and holy to be real in her haloed perfection. ‘Happy for her we might be inclined to say. ‘Perfect woman, perfect mother, perfect wife, perfect son. Sure she had everything going for her. Not like the rest of us.’
But Mary was real. She gave birth in a stable. She was on the run from King Herod with her child in her arms while babies were being slaughtered in the search for ‘the newborn king of the Jews.’ Tongues must have wagged about her relationship with Joseph. They were probably glad to get away to Bethlehem for his birth. Then there was the trauma of that time he went missing in Jerusalem at the age of twelve. She lived to see her son rejected, scorned, scourged and crucified. She saw the raw reality of life alright.
My advice to people who wonder about messages attributed to Mary by visionaries is to stick to Mary of the gospels, the woman who was always helping others, her cousin Elizabeth, the people at the wedding at Cana, Jesus and his followers both before and after the crucifixion. Threatening talk is the last thing I could associate with Mary. Anyway the church allows us to take or leave those things which are not central to faith. Like many more around the country and further afield I will be praying the Knock novena next week, confident that we honour Mary most when we do what Jesus tells us in the gospels.
The biggest temptation the Internet presents to the writer or researcher is to take the lazy road, copy down a few lines or a page and make life easy for yourself. It is not as easy to take that route when a person announces that they have been surfing the web, as others quickly recognise where the content came from. So instead of dazzling you with downloaded facts, legends and traditions to do with Mary’s death and Assumption into Heaven as reported since the earliest Christian times I had better give you my own take on the subject.
In the Irish language the Feast of The Assumption became known as ‘Lá Fhéil Muire Mór sa bhFómhar,’ (The Autumn Feast of Mary, the great one.) In Irish too Mary has a name of her own – Muire which sets her apart from all others. Girls called after her were given the name Mary or May or Maureen, Máire or Muiread but the name ‘Muire’ was reserved for the mother of God.
The Feast of the Assumption sets Mary apart in another way, as the first human to achieve perfection, the sinless one assumed into Heaven so that her body would not undergo corruption. One of the dangers of setting someone apart in this way is that people might no longer think of Mary as one of their own. Pious pictures and statues can have this effect too in that she is seen as someone almost too beautiful and holy to be real in her haloed perfection. ‘Happy for her we might be inclined to say. ‘Perfect woman, perfect mother, perfect wife, perfect son. Sure she had everything going for her. Not like the rest of us.’
But Mary was real. She gave birth in a stable. She was on the run from King Herod with her child in her arms while babies were being slaughtered in the search for ‘the newborn king of the Jews.’ Tongues must have wagged about her relationship with Joseph. They were probably glad to get away to Bethlehem for his birth. Then there was the trauma of that time he went missing in Jerusalem at the age of twelve. She lived to see her son rejected, scorned, scourged and crucified. She saw the raw reality of life alright.
My advice to people who wonder about messages attributed to Mary by visionaries is to stick to Mary of the gospels, the woman who was always helping others, her cousin Elizabeth, the people at the wedding at Cana, Jesus and his followers both before and after the crucifixion. Threatening talk is the last thing I could associate with Mary. Anyway the church allows us to take or leave those things which are not central to faith. Like many more around the country and further afield I will be praying the Knock novena next week, confident that we honour Mary most when we do what Jesus tells us in the gospels.
Week ending 4th August 2009
I had some serious computer difficulties recently which were competently corrected by a Castlebar computer shop. Files I thought were lost forever were summoned from limbo and my square-faced friend, the computer screen, is smiling back at me again. An amusing e-mail from England from Michael J Sheridan who has Tourmakeady roots reminded me that I am not the only one to suffer computer problems.
Readers who are not familiar with computers may find the following hard to understand, but anything goes in this, the so-called journalistic silly season. Those who are used to the sometimes unpredictability of computers with minds of their own are likely to be nodding in agreement.
The most successful and famous computer guru in the business, Bill Gates of Microsoft fame reportedly compared the computer industry with the motor industry some time ago and stated: “If General Motors (GM) had kept up with technology like the computer industry, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.
Many car owners might agree with him, but General Motors were not letting him get away with it. They issued a press release, stating: “If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
Readers who are not familiar with computers may find the following hard to understand, but anything goes in this, the so-called journalistic silly season. Those who are used to the sometimes unpredictability of computers with minds of their own are likely to be nodding in agreement.
The most successful and famous computer guru in the business, Bill Gates of Microsoft fame reportedly compared the computer industry with the motor industry some time ago and stated: “If General Motors (GM) had kept up with technology like the computer industry, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.
Many car owners might agree with him, but General Motors were not letting him get away with it. They issued a press release, stating: “If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
- For no reason whatever your car would crash… Twice a day.
- Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
- Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
- Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to start, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
- The airbag system would ask ‘Are you sure?’ before deploying.
- Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antennae.
- Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
- You would have to press the ‘Start’ button to turn the engine off.
- When you would call customer service you would be put through to some foreign country where you would be instructed in a foreign language how to fix the car yourself.
