Week ending February 25th 2014
It was on this day sixty-seven years ago that the great blizzard of 1947 began. I know because my sister Mary came with the snow. I don’t remember noticing either herself or the snow, as I was in a sense footless at the time. No, not with alcohol as I was just over a year old. I have often been told that I did not start to walk until I was a year and three months, so I suppose it is fair to say that the snow and myself left the ground about the same time. I am reputed to have been a flyer on my bum around the floor, I am reliably informed that if there had been such a discipline in the Winter Olympics of the time I would be the proud possessor of a gold medal. I was never to become very fast on my feet and to this day have the not so proud boast that I never won anything on a field of play in my life. I have not given up yet as I will soon be eligible for the over seventies duck-egg and silver spoon race.
The first time that I remember noticing my baby sister was probably about a year later, the day she threw her bottle out of the cot. Baby bottles then were made of glass, so it shattered into smithereens on the concrete floor. I was loitering without intent on the same floor and was amazed to see the shards of glass sparkle like diamonds in the light of the oil-lamp. I grabbed the piece nearest to me and within seconds there was blood spurting from the thumb of my right hand. That was in itself fascinating, as it seemed impossible that such a small thumb could produce so much blood. My mother sat me on her lap and squeezed my hand and thumb until the blood stopped. In the meantime my father had gone to the barn from which he returned carrying a great big dirty cobweb. It was that which eventually congealed the blood and kept me from bleeding to death, so in thanksgiving I have not, in so far as I know, ever hurt a spider since.
There was no talk of stitching such a wound then, so my thumb still carries that scar from stem to stern. It is the same thumb that now rubs holy oils on the foreheads of babies and those who are sick, or rubs on ashes on the first day of Lent. It is probably the main reason I did not go in for a life of crime as “Scarthumb” might have become as famous as “Scarface.” Even at the infancy of finger-printing I would have stood out like a sore thumb, if you will pardon the pun. That episode is one of the few I remember from under the age of three, though I do remember my grandmother’s funeral, or at least some aspects of it such as the coffin that arrived outside our house on the roof-rack of Tommy Cuffe’s car. I am reputed to have asked “What is the lovely box for?”
When I look up that village of Ballydavock now on the 1911 or 1901 Census websites I am surprised to find family surnames of people I never even heard of even though I was born less than forty or fifty years later. I can understand why as my own and a number of other families that walked those roads and tilled those fields, Fahys, Hughes, Bodkins, Skeffingtons, Stauntons no longer have a presence there. But as long as we live we carry with us the memories of the happy times as well as the mishaps that helped to shape us. The fields look smaller now than when we covered every inch with hay-fork and rake, but they travel with us wherever we live. People come and go like February snow.
The first time that I remember noticing my baby sister was probably about a year later, the day she threw her bottle out of the cot. Baby bottles then were made of glass, so it shattered into smithereens on the concrete floor. I was loitering without intent on the same floor and was amazed to see the shards of glass sparkle like diamonds in the light of the oil-lamp. I grabbed the piece nearest to me and within seconds there was blood spurting from the thumb of my right hand. That was in itself fascinating, as it seemed impossible that such a small thumb could produce so much blood. My mother sat me on her lap and squeezed my hand and thumb until the blood stopped. In the meantime my father had gone to the barn from which he returned carrying a great big dirty cobweb. It was that which eventually congealed the blood and kept me from bleeding to death, so in thanksgiving I have not, in so far as I know, ever hurt a spider since.
There was no talk of stitching such a wound then, so my thumb still carries that scar from stem to stern. It is the same thumb that now rubs holy oils on the foreheads of babies and those who are sick, or rubs on ashes on the first day of Lent. It is probably the main reason I did not go in for a life of crime as “Scarthumb” might have become as famous as “Scarface.” Even at the infancy of finger-printing I would have stood out like a sore thumb, if you will pardon the pun. That episode is one of the few I remember from under the age of three, though I do remember my grandmother’s funeral, or at least some aspects of it such as the coffin that arrived outside our house on the roof-rack of Tommy Cuffe’s car. I am reputed to have asked “What is the lovely box for?”
When I look up that village of Ballydavock now on the 1911 or 1901 Census websites I am surprised to find family surnames of people I never even heard of even though I was born less than forty or fifty years later. I can understand why as my own and a number of other families that walked those roads and tilled those fields, Fahys, Hughes, Bodkins, Skeffingtons, Stauntons no longer have a presence there. But as long as we live we carry with us the memories of the happy times as well as the mishaps that helped to shape us. The fields look smaller now than when we covered every inch with hay-fork and rake, but they travel with us wherever we live. People come and go like February snow.
Week ending February 19th 2014
Forty years ago this month, on my twenty-eight birthday, I stepped out of my comfort zone and placed a one man picket on the CIE train and bus station in Galway. The ferry to the Aran Islands, the Naomh Éanna was run by CIE at the time and they had not sailed for a couple of days before that, despite the fact that the weather was not very bad. There had been a few storms earlier in the year that resembled some of those we have had this year, so nerves were a bit frayed with regard to cargo and supplies to Inis Oirr, the island in which I lived at the time. The neighbouring islands of Inis Mór and Inis Meáin already had Aer Arann plane services so we felt particularly isolated. It was February before I had an opportunity to have a “Christmas” break, so I was none too happy to find myself stranded on the mainland coming up to the weekend. The first person I met outside the Station was Mayo-man and Irish Times western correspondent, Michael Finlan. He arranged a photographer who pictured me in my hoodie oilskin in the rain, which led to a Parish Priest of the Archdiocese of Tuam referring to me as “Robin Hood” from then on.
I was reminded of this recently when I met a man who had come to the island the following week as part of a delegation from Gaeltarra Éireann sent out to map a place for an airstrip on the island. Bingo – the protest had worked beyond my wildest dreams. The man in question was about nineteen at the time and was on one of his first projects for the Government agency that preceded Údarás na Gaeltachta, the Gaeltacht Authority. Another of those involved, Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, who plays Peadar in the TG4 soap opera “Ros na Rún” has since spoken and written about the oilskin coat I gave him as he was getting into a currach to cross to Inis Meáin and fly home on the plane. As a veteran of that journey on many Sunday mornings between Masses I told him he would be wet through in his working clothes before he got to the other side. Saints such as Francis and Martin have seven hundred year old reputations for giving away their coats, but in their cases it was their only coat. I have to admit that it was my second-hand one, as I now had my hoodie as well.
Leaving the comfort zone and stepping into the unknown is never easy but it is often rewarding and it can help build up confidence and courage. My most recent step in that regard was to invite an atheist to preach at Mass during the Novena in Kilkerrin. Seosamh Ó Cuaig is a local Co Counciller and was an elected member of Údarás na Gaeltachta until their electoral mandate was discontinued by our present Government. In recent months he had texted me a number of times about his admiration for Pope Francis, as well as attaching articles about the Pope from internationally renowned newspapers. I asked him to speak about that at the Novena to Our lady of Perpetual Succour. There was a full house on one of the worst nights of the year. Both he and I were a little nervous about how his audience would react, but he got a round of applause, which is more than I have ever got in forty-three years as a preacher. I sometimes feel that my own church can feel under siege and think everyone who is not one of us is against us. It is not so. Some are neutral, others favourable, or as Jesus put it in the gospel of Saint Mark (9:40) “Anyone who is not against us is for us.”
I was reminded of this recently when I met a man who had come to the island the following week as part of a delegation from Gaeltarra Éireann sent out to map a place for an airstrip on the island. Bingo – the protest had worked beyond my wildest dreams. The man in question was about nineteen at the time and was on one of his first projects for the Government agency that preceded Údarás na Gaeltachta, the Gaeltacht Authority. Another of those involved, Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, who plays Peadar in the TG4 soap opera “Ros na Rún” has since spoken and written about the oilskin coat I gave him as he was getting into a currach to cross to Inis Meáin and fly home on the plane. As a veteran of that journey on many Sunday mornings between Masses I told him he would be wet through in his working clothes before he got to the other side. Saints such as Francis and Martin have seven hundred year old reputations for giving away their coats, but in their cases it was their only coat. I have to admit that it was my second-hand one, as I now had my hoodie as well.
Leaving the comfort zone and stepping into the unknown is never easy but it is often rewarding and it can help build up confidence and courage. My most recent step in that regard was to invite an atheist to preach at Mass during the Novena in Kilkerrin. Seosamh Ó Cuaig is a local Co Counciller and was an elected member of Údarás na Gaeltachta until their electoral mandate was discontinued by our present Government. In recent months he had texted me a number of times about his admiration for Pope Francis, as well as attaching articles about the Pope from internationally renowned newspapers. I asked him to speak about that at the Novena to Our lady of Perpetual Succour. There was a full house on one of the worst nights of the year. Both he and I were a little nervous about how his audience would react, but he got a round of applause, which is more than I have ever got in forty-three years as a preacher. I sometimes feel that my own church can feel under siege and think everyone who is not one of us is against us. It is not so. Some are neutral, others favourable, or as Jesus put it in the gospel of Saint Mark (9:40) “Anyone who is not against us is for us.”
Week ending February 11th 2014
I’m all for a pluralist society in which there would be room and welcome for the traditional “Catholic Protestant and Dissenter” as well as Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Secularist, Atheist, Agnostic and any other faith or lack of it we could mention. I would have no problem with having a holiday to mark the end of Ramadan, Yom Kippur or the anniversary of some great secular icon. What I would suggest we don’t need is a watering down of deeply held beliefs and traditions in case they would offend people of other faiths or none. I don’t think that people of other faiths would want that either. Let each take its own stand in the marketplace.
Faith festivals of all kinds bring much needed life and colour to people’s lives. One of the great failures of the communist revolutions of the last centuries was their inability to replicate that colour and excitement by army march-pasts and the display of gung-ho weaponry. What a dry and arid place the world would be without religious feasts and fiestas, Mardi Gras, Christmas, Easter, patterns in honour of local saints and the many Hindu and Muslim festivals held throughout the world. All the “Arthur’s Days” that could be invented would never replace such traditional revelry. I write this as someone that deserves a “Stout Medal” for celebrating Arthur’s Days long before they were invented.
The Christmas Message delivered recently by President Michael D Higgins drew a certain amount of criticism because it came across as an attempt to appease everyone and in fact offended quite a few who felt that Christ was being taken out of Christmas. I heard someone ask will we be celebrating “Happy Secular-mas” next year. While the President emphasised values common to all faiths and to humanism, his failure to make any mention of the origins of the feast was seen as part of a wishy-washy politically correct secular agenda of a kind increasingly associated in people’s minds with the Labour Party to which he belonged before his election. It is unfortunate for that Party that it is perceived as anti-Catholic when in fact many of its supporters are motivated by their faith.
The increasingly bullish attitude of Education Minister Ruairi Quinn towards religion teaching in National schools is likely to cost his Party dearly in local and European elections this year. It seems to have surprised and hurt the Minister that many more parents have not rushed to have Catholic schools divested. While even the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin conceded a few years ago that as many as fifty percent of schools could come under new patronage, the uptake from on-line surveys has seen little enough appetite for such changes. This may not have as much to do with religion as with leaving well enough alone. I suspect that it also has to do with the fact that not as many parents are online as civil servants think, or that many would be much more likely to fill a paper form than to go online. Either way the Minister seems to be looking for action before he is removed or reshuffled. There is nothing wrong with secularism as such, but nobody wants to have either religion or secularism shoved down their throats.
Faith festivals of all kinds bring much needed life and colour to people’s lives. One of the great failures of the communist revolutions of the last centuries was their inability to replicate that colour and excitement by army march-pasts and the display of gung-ho weaponry. What a dry and arid place the world would be without religious feasts and fiestas, Mardi Gras, Christmas, Easter, patterns in honour of local saints and the many Hindu and Muslim festivals held throughout the world. All the “Arthur’s Days” that could be invented would never replace such traditional revelry. I write this as someone that deserves a “Stout Medal” for celebrating Arthur’s Days long before they were invented.
The Christmas Message delivered recently by President Michael D Higgins drew a certain amount of criticism because it came across as an attempt to appease everyone and in fact offended quite a few who felt that Christ was being taken out of Christmas. I heard someone ask will we be celebrating “Happy Secular-mas” next year. While the President emphasised values common to all faiths and to humanism, his failure to make any mention of the origins of the feast was seen as part of a wishy-washy politically correct secular agenda of a kind increasingly associated in people’s minds with the Labour Party to which he belonged before his election. It is unfortunate for that Party that it is perceived as anti-Catholic when in fact many of its supporters are motivated by their faith.
The increasingly bullish attitude of Education Minister Ruairi Quinn towards religion teaching in National schools is likely to cost his Party dearly in local and European elections this year. It seems to have surprised and hurt the Minister that many more parents have not rushed to have Catholic schools divested. While even the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin conceded a few years ago that as many as fifty percent of schools could come under new patronage, the uptake from on-line surveys has seen little enough appetite for such changes. This may not have as much to do with religion as with leaving well enough alone. I suspect that it also has to do with the fact that not as many parents are online as civil servants think, or that many would be much more likely to fill a paper form than to go online. Either way the Minister seems to be looking for action before he is removed or reshuffled. There is nothing wrong with secularism as such, but nobody wants to have either religion or secularism shoved down their throats.
Week ending February 4th 2014
I read a book recently. I should not expect a round of applause for that announcement, but I have not been reading as much as I should. There are too many distractions, but in this case the book itself became the distraction. It made me laugh out loud quite a few times and once or twice brought me close to tears. I had met the author, Michael Harding a number of times about thirty years ago when he was a young priest in the parish of Derrylin, Co. Fermanagh. From time to time he would visit a college classmate of his, John O’Donohue who served next to me in Rossaveal when I was a curate in An Cheathrú Rua (Conamara) We would meet to talk, to eat and drink, and as a poem I learned at school put it: “to tire the sun with talking and send her down the sky.” It did not always stop at that, as I remember at least one occasion we watched the sun rise during a morning swim in the Atlantic as I attempted (successfully) to sober up for morning Mass.
Both Michael Harding and John O’Donohue could buy and sell me when it came to philosophy or theology and my only bit of street-cred was that I had a novel published in the Irish language and ten years more experience in parish work than they had. I was in awe of their intellect, articulateness, poise and talents. Michael Harding had a theatrical air and the ability to be the life and soul of any party. My inferiority complex bowed low before his seemingly superior attitude to life in general as he seemed to soar like a bright comet above the level of mere humans. Comets however are subject to burn-out and to my surprise I found out from his book: “Staring At Lakes – A Memoir of Love, Melancholy and Magical Thinking,” he was subject to deep depression for much of his life. He did however find the love which helped him through the darkest hours, and he writes in a beautifully tender way about his wife and daughter.
Michael left the priesthood behind him and sought truth and fulfilment in an honest search that took him to Buddhist monasteries and other sources of wisdom and holiness. He says now that he tried two religions and no religion at all, and none has really proven satisfactory. Perhaps he has tried too hard or expected too much, but “I still have not found what I am looking for” is probably one of the oldest themes of human endeavour. For a man who has rejected religion I find that he is more obsessed with the subject than even religious maniacs like myself who have given almost all of their lives to it. A memoir gives scope for self-indulgence, self-justification, self-pity, self- praise, self-torture, and all of the above are present in Michael Harding’s book, but that is what a memoir is for, particularly a memoir that tells so harrowingly of deep depression, though even the most tortured moments are lightened by bursts of laugh-out-loud wit.
There is a touch of that superior comet like being in high orbit that looks down unconsciously on ordinary mortals about some observations, a disdainful dismissal of former college colleagues for instance, greying and praying in their lonely presbyteries. What seems to be missing is the possibility that some at least have found that pearl of greatest price – contentment, without ever having to leave home and search to the ends of the earth. Not even mare’s milk from Mongolia can match that ‘suaimhneas.’
Both Michael Harding and John O’Donohue could buy and sell me when it came to philosophy or theology and my only bit of street-cred was that I had a novel published in the Irish language and ten years more experience in parish work than they had. I was in awe of their intellect, articulateness, poise and talents. Michael Harding had a theatrical air and the ability to be the life and soul of any party. My inferiority complex bowed low before his seemingly superior attitude to life in general as he seemed to soar like a bright comet above the level of mere humans. Comets however are subject to burn-out and to my surprise I found out from his book: “Staring At Lakes – A Memoir of Love, Melancholy and Magical Thinking,” he was subject to deep depression for much of his life. He did however find the love which helped him through the darkest hours, and he writes in a beautifully tender way about his wife and daughter.
Michael left the priesthood behind him and sought truth and fulfilment in an honest search that took him to Buddhist monasteries and other sources of wisdom and holiness. He says now that he tried two religions and no religion at all, and none has really proven satisfactory. Perhaps he has tried too hard or expected too much, but “I still have not found what I am looking for” is probably one of the oldest themes of human endeavour. For a man who has rejected religion I find that he is more obsessed with the subject than even religious maniacs like myself who have given almost all of their lives to it. A memoir gives scope for self-indulgence, self-justification, self-pity, self- praise, self-torture, and all of the above are present in Michael Harding’s book, but that is what a memoir is for, particularly a memoir that tells so harrowingly of deep depression, though even the most tortured moments are lightened by bursts of laugh-out-loud wit.
There is a touch of that superior comet like being in high orbit that looks down unconsciously on ordinary mortals about some observations, a disdainful dismissal of former college colleagues for instance, greying and praying in their lonely presbyteries. What seems to be missing is the possibility that some at least have found that pearl of greatest price – contentment, without ever having to leave home and search to the ends of the earth. Not even mare’s milk from Mongolia can match that ‘suaimhneas.’