Week ending July 30th 2013
I was looking forward in an article some weeks back to Saint Mac Dara’s Day in Carna with a mixture of hope, anticipation and a small amount of trepidation. The trepidation came from the fact that the annual trip to the saint’s island off the coast had been cancelled twice because of inclement weather since I came here. I should not have worried this year as the unexpected heat-wave turned the sea journey into a pleasure enjoyed by up to a thousand people of all ages and many nationalities. People talked about the experience as a magical day with music supplied by young local musicians, hymns by members of Carna choir and a stirring address about the saint himself given by a namesake of his, MacDara Ó Loideáin who taught for many years in Moyrus National School.
Redish sails were gathered all around us in the sunshine. Not quite ‘Red sails in the sunset,’ as the sails are not quite red, and a few are black. It was still an impressive sight to see between twenty and thirty sailboats of the distinctive Galway variety taking part in the regatta that followed Mass on the island. There were hookers, halfboats and the smaller gleoteógs, lovingly prepared and in some cases restored by the people who have virtually brought this type of boat back from the dead. When I last served as a priest in Conamara in the seventies and eighties of the last century those boats were an endangered species. The main role of the larger boats of bringing turf to the Aran Islands and the Kinvara and Ballyvaughan areas of Counties Galway and Clare was coming to an end. The few big boats that remained lay like great black white elephants in safe local harbours. It seemed it was only a matter of time before their rotting skeletons would rise from the silt like the ribs of long dead whales. Then came the revival and restoration.
The 2013 Gathering brought about other revivals. The extended McDonagh family reaches from the White House in Washington DC where Denis McDonough is a close confidant and security adviser to President Barak Obama to his first cousin Joe McDonagh, former Galway hurler and President of the GAA. Another cousin, John E McDonough is head of the Public Health Centre in Harvard University. He advised Presidential candidate Mitt Romney on healthcare in Boston and the US Government more recently on the provision of what has become known as Obamacare. He delivered a lecture on health matters to mark the tenth anniversary of Carna Nursing Home in an area from which his father immigrated eighty or so years ago. Another visitor who has made good in American politics was home too. Senator Margaret Craven was born as Margaret Connolly in Carna parish and is now a State Senator in Maine. She too marked the Nursing Home anniversary with a lecture on health matters.
Saint MacDara’s Day was polished off in Carna with the launch of an almost one thousand page book on sean-nós songs and singing: “Leabhar Mór na nAmhrán” (The great book of songs.) Published by Cló Iar-Chonnacht, it was organised by that company’s founder, Micheál Ó Conghaile and edited by Lochlainn Ó Túairisg from Indreabhán and Peadar Ó Ceannabháin from Cill Chiaráin. Many of the four hundred or so songs contained within, with explanatory notes, etc are from County Mayo. As a Mayoman who has spent much of his life in West Galway I have often wondered why so many sean-nós songs refer to my home county. Is it because “Condae Mhaigh Eo” rhymes so well?
Redish sails were gathered all around us in the sunshine. Not quite ‘Red sails in the sunset,’ as the sails are not quite red, and a few are black. It was still an impressive sight to see between twenty and thirty sailboats of the distinctive Galway variety taking part in the regatta that followed Mass on the island. There were hookers, halfboats and the smaller gleoteógs, lovingly prepared and in some cases restored by the people who have virtually brought this type of boat back from the dead. When I last served as a priest in Conamara in the seventies and eighties of the last century those boats were an endangered species. The main role of the larger boats of bringing turf to the Aran Islands and the Kinvara and Ballyvaughan areas of Counties Galway and Clare was coming to an end. The few big boats that remained lay like great black white elephants in safe local harbours. It seemed it was only a matter of time before their rotting skeletons would rise from the silt like the ribs of long dead whales. Then came the revival and restoration.
The 2013 Gathering brought about other revivals. The extended McDonagh family reaches from the White House in Washington DC where Denis McDonough is a close confidant and security adviser to President Barak Obama to his first cousin Joe McDonagh, former Galway hurler and President of the GAA. Another cousin, John E McDonough is head of the Public Health Centre in Harvard University. He advised Presidential candidate Mitt Romney on healthcare in Boston and the US Government more recently on the provision of what has become known as Obamacare. He delivered a lecture on health matters to mark the tenth anniversary of Carna Nursing Home in an area from which his father immigrated eighty or so years ago. Another visitor who has made good in American politics was home too. Senator Margaret Craven was born as Margaret Connolly in Carna parish and is now a State Senator in Maine. She too marked the Nursing Home anniversary with a lecture on health matters.
Saint MacDara’s Day was polished off in Carna with the launch of an almost one thousand page book on sean-nós songs and singing: “Leabhar Mór na nAmhrán” (The great book of songs.) Published by Cló Iar-Chonnacht, it was organised by that company’s founder, Micheál Ó Conghaile and edited by Lochlainn Ó Túairisg from Indreabhán and Peadar Ó Ceannabháin from Cill Chiaráin. Many of the four hundred or so songs contained within, with explanatory notes, etc are from County Mayo. As a Mayoman who has spent much of his life in West Galway I have often wondered why so many sean-nós songs refer to my home county. Is it because “Condae Mhaigh Eo” rhymes so well?
Week ending 23rd July 2013
I had occasion to recently recall my first and last days at National school at an end of term Mass in Cill Chiarain in the other side of Carna parish, as well as at a Gathering in Glynsk school about five miles from Carna. Comparisons with my own schooldays were inevitable. I recalled that tree that leans out across the road just past Roaches (then Brennans) a half a mile or so from Clogher National school which lies close to the centre of a triangle drawn between Belcarra, Carnacon and Ballintubber. Looking up at that big tree as a five year old scared me enough to run from one side to the other as I thought it would fall before reaching the other side. Sixty-two years later that same tree proudly leans across that same road and the roof of the world has not fallen on top of us in the meantime.
I finished at that school at a scary enough time in world history, the depths of what was known as the ‘Cold War,’ when the then great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union were at loggerheads and there seemed to be a threat of World War 111, and the nuclear arsenal that would unleash less than fifteen years after the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Looking back now the world seemed to be under more threat then than it is at present. There was talk too of the end of the world in 1960, something to do with the leaking of the Third Secret of Fatima. It was rumoured that there would be dark days, during which everyone would have a lighted candle. If your candle went out, you were a goner. Fifty-three years later the world has not ended, or if it has, it has been unknown to me. I was trying to point out the unnecessary worry caused by rumour and threat, especially to children.“Sufficient for the day its own worry,” as Jesus said.
Glynsk National school has been closed for more than thirty years, but unlike many old school buildings which have gone to wreck and ruin, it is still a centre for education, now under the auspices of the Co. Galway Vocational sector. Various courses and classes are run there throughout the winter. As in all Gatherings and get-togethers there was much talk of times gone by, of teachers, of priests who said Mass there at weekends, of the older people who gathered for such ceremonies. The cane got a mention as did the daily sod of turf, and bottles of cocoa in front of the fire. Words attributed to the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins were mentioned. When speaking of someone who had done well in life despite having only National School education, he is reputed to have remarked: “The sod of turf wasn’t wasted on him.”
Gatherings, big and small are sending Irish people back down many memory lanes at present. For some those memories are far from pleasant as we have learned from various reports in recent years. For others there is acknowledgment of a past which prepared them to take on the world in Ireland, Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or wherever. The sods of turf were certainly not wasted, and as they return to the old sod, many hearts swell with pride. In one sense they have left the old world behind many years ago. In another they have brought it with them as an anchor. One of the great joys in life is carrying our good store of memories with us the way the seilimide carries its house on its back.
I finished at that school at a scary enough time in world history, the depths of what was known as the ‘Cold War,’ when the then great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union were at loggerheads and there seemed to be a threat of World War 111, and the nuclear arsenal that would unleash less than fifteen years after the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Looking back now the world seemed to be under more threat then than it is at present. There was talk too of the end of the world in 1960, something to do with the leaking of the Third Secret of Fatima. It was rumoured that there would be dark days, during which everyone would have a lighted candle. If your candle went out, you were a goner. Fifty-three years later the world has not ended, or if it has, it has been unknown to me. I was trying to point out the unnecessary worry caused by rumour and threat, especially to children.“Sufficient for the day its own worry,” as Jesus said.
Glynsk National school has been closed for more than thirty years, but unlike many old school buildings which have gone to wreck and ruin, it is still a centre for education, now under the auspices of the Co. Galway Vocational sector. Various courses and classes are run there throughout the winter. As in all Gatherings and get-togethers there was much talk of times gone by, of teachers, of priests who said Mass there at weekends, of the older people who gathered for such ceremonies. The cane got a mention as did the daily sod of turf, and bottles of cocoa in front of the fire. Words attributed to the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins were mentioned. When speaking of someone who had done well in life despite having only National School education, he is reputed to have remarked: “The sod of turf wasn’t wasted on him.”
Gatherings, big and small are sending Irish people back down many memory lanes at present. For some those memories are far from pleasant as we have learned from various reports in recent years. For others there is acknowledgment of a past which prepared them to take on the world in Ireland, Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or wherever. The sods of turf were certainly not wasted, and as they return to the old sod, many hearts swell with pride. In one sense they have left the old world behind many years ago. In another they have brought it with them as an anchor. One of the great joys in life is carrying our good store of memories with us the way the seilimide carries its house on its back.
Week ending July 16th 2013
By the time these words are in print I hope to be on board a fishing boat heading out from Mace pier to St. Mac Dara’s island off the coast of Carna. The ‘Mace’ in question is not a supermarket but a place name some people will be familiar with from weather forecasts. There is a meterological station on nearby Mace Head facing into the southwest prevailing wind as it comes ashore at the bottom corner of the Galway/Mayo extension into the Atlantic ocean. Saint Mac Dara is revered in this part of the world, his island a sacred place. His little church was beautifully restored in the 1970’s and the tradition of having Mass and a pilgrimage there on his feast day, the 16th of July, goes back much further.
Fisherfolk and sailors have a special regard for St. Mac Dara. Sailboats have the tradition of honouring him by dipping a sail. The recent tragedy in Waterford where three Bolger brothers were drowned was felt in all coast and fishing communities. Each remember tragedies that happened in their own area at a time like this. They are united in their grief and in their knowledge of the power of the sea, no matter how careful people are or what precautions they take. After forty-two years as a priest in coastal and island communities as well as by the shore of Lough Mask, I am very aware of how deeply those feelings run. The harrowing grief of failing to find a body is probably the worst of all, whether this is felt after a drowning or in the case of the disappeared whose families are still searching for the bodies of loved ones murdered during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Saint Mac Dara’s pattern or patron day will acknowledge grief and loss as well as praying for the safety of all who put to sea, but like all such days there will be the fun element too. There is a certain excitement, especially for children, in heading out to an offshore island for a special occasion. Some will bring picnics to have after the ceremonies. People will mingle, greet old friends, wander around the island for a couple of hours. There will be a regatta. The great sails of hooker and gleoteóg will soon be seen throughout the bay as boats from all over Conamara and beyond will race each other. The boats themselves have in a sense been resurrected, as many were made redundant in the seventies when the turftrade across Galway Bay to the Aran Islands and Ballyvaughan came to an end. Many have been restored, others built from scratch, so it is now possible to see as many as thirty traditional sails in one outing.
Saint Mac Dara’s Day will have a special meaning for me as it marks the third anniversary of my move from Tourmakeady to Carna. I had hoped to make it back recently for the Tourmakeady Gathering but I was unable to get away on the evening in question. After three years away I was looking forward to the visit. Like many other priests I have never been one for going back to previous parishes as it can cramp the style of a person’s successor, but after a couple of years that is less of an issue. In a week in which a number of priests of the Archdiosese of Tuam are retiring and others are moving to new parishes, I wish them well.
Fisherfolk and sailors have a special regard for St. Mac Dara. Sailboats have the tradition of honouring him by dipping a sail. The recent tragedy in Waterford where three Bolger brothers were drowned was felt in all coast and fishing communities. Each remember tragedies that happened in their own area at a time like this. They are united in their grief and in their knowledge of the power of the sea, no matter how careful people are or what precautions they take. After forty-two years as a priest in coastal and island communities as well as by the shore of Lough Mask, I am very aware of how deeply those feelings run. The harrowing grief of failing to find a body is probably the worst of all, whether this is felt after a drowning or in the case of the disappeared whose families are still searching for the bodies of loved ones murdered during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Saint Mac Dara’s pattern or patron day will acknowledge grief and loss as well as praying for the safety of all who put to sea, but like all such days there will be the fun element too. There is a certain excitement, especially for children, in heading out to an offshore island for a special occasion. Some will bring picnics to have after the ceremonies. People will mingle, greet old friends, wander around the island for a couple of hours. There will be a regatta. The great sails of hooker and gleoteóg will soon be seen throughout the bay as boats from all over Conamara and beyond will race each other. The boats themselves have in a sense been resurrected, as many were made redundant in the seventies when the turftrade across Galway Bay to the Aran Islands and Ballyvaughan came to an end. Many have been restored, others built from scratch, so it is now possible to see as many as thirty traditional sails in one outing.
Saint Mac Dara’s Day will have a special meaning for me as it marks the third anniversary of my move from Tourmakeady to Carna. I had hoped to make it back recently for the Tourmakeady Gathering but I was unable to get away on the evening in question. After three years away I was looking forward to the visit. Like many other priests I have never been one for going back to previous parishes as it can cramp the style of a person’s successor, but after a couple of years that is less of an issue. In a week in which a number of priests of the Archdiosese of Tuam are retiring and others are moving to new parishes, I wish them well.
Week ending July 9th 2013
“No broads on the altar” is a phrase attributed to Archbishop Paul Marcinkus who accompanied Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979 at a time when he was head of the Institute for Religious Works, better known as the Vatican Bank. A burly man of 6ft 4ins, known to his colleagues as “The Gorilla” he was seen as a kind of papal bodyguard on such trips, and he certainly stood on some toes during the Irish visit. Son of poor Lithuanian emigrants, Paul Marcinkus, 1922 - 2006 was born and reared in Chicago and became a bishop in 1969. Questions remain unanswered about the Vatican Bank and its alleged connections with the Italian Mafia, but those questions were never answered by the Archbishop, and he is remembered mostly as a colourful character, famous for phrases such as “No broads on the altar,” coined as preparations were being made for the papal Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. While “broads” are allowed on Roman Catholic altars as readers,
Eucharistic Ministers, sayers of prayers or Mass servers, there is little hope at present that they can become priests anytime soon, despite the fact that shortage of clergy has us hurtling headlong towards a time when Eucharistic celebrations will be as rare as hen’s teeth. It is however a different meaning of the word broad that preoccupies me today, a broad church, an inclusive church, a ‘catholic’ church in the original sense of that word, broad, welcoming, open. A broad church too, of course in the sense that men and women will be seen as equal before the Lord, with equal access to the altar of God.
Is it by accident or design that the Roman Catholic church now occupies such a narrow spectrum in Irish life. While 87% of citizens proclaimed themselves as Catholics in the most recent census, and perhaps 40% attend church on a regular basis, a perception has arisen that it is only these rather than the baptised in general who are seen as Roman Catholic. Many of those who do attend Mass regularly are themselves seen as suspect because their views are liberal and they are not part of the narrow focus that sees itself as ‘the real church.’ The alienated Roman Catholics are probably closer to the Catholicism proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council of fifty years ago than those who aggressively glory in being the last remnant of the real truth, and to Hell with the rest.
A message remains on my phone calling me “Satan’s b*****d” because I publicly supported the Government’s Bill for the protection of life during pregnancy. The same weekend I read the Sunday gospel seven times in public and a few times more in private. It was that sensual gospel of compassion in which Jesus spoke of and to the woman who has washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. “Her sins, her many sins have been forgiven,” he said, “because she loved much.” How far that is from the raging hate of those who disagree with their neighbours.
As for Satan, he was more upset than I was. He is looking for a DNA test to prove that I am no relation.
Eucharistic Ministers, sayers of prayers or Mass servers, there is little hope at present that they can become priests anytime soon, despite the fact that shortage of clergy has us hurtling headlong towards a time when Eucharistic celebrations will be as rare as hen’s teeth. It is however a different meaning of the word broad that preoccupies me today, a broad church, an inclusive church, a ‘catholic’ church in the original sense of that word, broad, welcoming, open. A broad church too, of course in the sense that men and women will be seen as equal before the Lord, with equal access to the altar of God.
Is it by accident or design that the Roman Catholic church now occupies such a narrow spectrum in Irish life. While 87% of citizens proclaimed themselves as Catholics in the most recent census, and perhaps 40% attend church on a regular basis, a perception has arisen that it is only these rather than the baptised in general who are seen as Roman Catholic. Many of those who do attend Mass regularly are themselves seen as suspect because their views are liberal and they are not part of the narrow focus that sees itself as ‘the real church.’ The alienated Roman Catholics are probably closer to the Catholicism proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council of fifty years ago than those who aggressively glory in being the last remnant of the real truth, and to Hell with the rest.
A message remains on my phone calling me “Satan’s b*****d” because I publicly supported the Government’s Bill for the protection of life during pregnancy. The same weekend I read the Sunday gospel seven times in public and a few times more in private. It was that sensual gospel of compassion in which Jesus spoke of and to the woman who has washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. “Her sins, her many sins have been forgiven,” he said, “because she loved much.” How far that is from the raging hate of those who disagree with their neighbours.
As for Satan, he was more upset than I was. He is looking for a DNA test to prove that I am no relation.
Week ending July 2nd 2013
This is my first effort at writing on my new laptop. I’m like a boy with a new toy, full of anticipation and not a little apprehension. I have been writing recently about my trials and tribulations with regard to computer and broadband problems. The end result is that while my old laptop was not completely past repair, it was not much more expensive to buy a new one than to have the other brought back to working order, and still end up with an aging machine. The main thing from my point of view was that all files on the older laptop were saved. I had copies of unfinished work on a memory stick, but it is always a help to be able to refer back to articles and manuscripts even years after they have been written.
I found it difficult to let go of the laptop on which I had worked for nearly eight years, and I wondered if it would have lasted longer if I had brought it for repair earlier. Still, when I looked back on the work it had done, five or six novels written and rewritten in Irish with some translated into English, about four hundred articles, as many more sermons, notes for parish newsletters, etc, I realised it was time to let it go to computer heaven. I hope it will not feel intimidated by the room-sized computers of forty or fifty years ago, or be snapped at by the minimalist terriers of pad sized brain boxes of today and tomorrow.
I took my first tentative steps into computing on an Amstrad during a course held in Indreabhán (Inverin) many years ago. The company involved loaned me a computer when I had nine months off to write fulltime in the winter of 1990. I had to forget much of what I had written the following year when Irish language publisher, Cló Iar-Chonnacht provided me with a small Apple Mackintosh Classic as payment for a book I had written, The screen was no bigger than the cover of a small book but it got through a lot of work. The ‘mouse’ was a novelty at the time, and did much of the work that had to be done by letters or numbers on the Amstrad. Incidentally I hear that some old Amstrads are worth a lot of money now, so have a look in the Attic. I moved to a bigger screen about the turn of the Millennium with a Compaq MV540 bought in instalments from the ESB in Castlebar. It still works, even if a little outdated.
I had visions of bringing my first laptop into the peace surrounding Tourmakeady waterfall and writing articles there, but the batteries let me down on some occasions on which I tried to do so. I am told that the batteries of my new one can work without recharging for three to four hours. The temptation will be to bring it to one of Carna’s beaches, but I would not like to think what sand and sea-salt would do for my new toy. Any new machine takes a bit of learning, especially as the user gets older. There are a million things on my new computer that I will never get to know or understand, but that does not matter. If it does what I need it to do, take a page of writing and send it without bother to its destination, I will be very happy.
I found it difficult to let go of the laptop on which I had worked for nearly eight years, and I wondered if it would have lasted longer if I had brought it for repair earlier. Still, when I looked back on the work it had done, five or six novels written and rewritten in Irish with some translated into English, about four hundred articles, as many more sermons, notes for parish newsletters, etc, I realised it was time to let it go to computer heaven. I hope it will not feel intimidated by the room-sized computers of forty or fifty years ago, or be snapped at by the minimalist terriers of pad sized brain boxes of today and tomorrow.
I took my first tentative steps into computing on an Amstrad during a course held in Indreabhán (Inverin) many years ago. The company involved loaned me a computer when I had nine months off to write fulltime in the winter of 1990. I had to forget much of what I had written the following year when Irish language publisher, Cló Iar-Chonnacht provided me with a small Apple Mackintosh Classic as payment for a book I had written, The screen was no bigger than the cover of a small book but it got through a lot of work. The ‘mouse’ was a novelty at the time, and did much of the work that had to be done by letters or numbers on the Amstrad. Incidentally I hear that some old Amstrads are worth a lot of money now, so have a look in the Attic. I moved to a bigger screen about the turn of the Millennium with a Compaq MV540 bought in instalments from the ESB in Castlebar. It still works, even if a little outdated.
I had visions of bringing my first laptop into the peace surrounding Tourmakeady waterfall and writing articles there, but the batteries let me down on some occasions on which I tried to do so. I am told that the batteries of my new one can work without recharging for three to four hours. The temptation will be to bring it to one of Carna’s beaches, but I would not like to think what sand and sea-salt would do for my new toy. Any new machine takes a bit of learning, especially as the user gets older. There are a million things on my new computer that I will never get to know or understand, but that does not matter. If it does what I need it to do, take a page of writing and send it without bother to its destination, I will be very happy.