Week ending 30th June
The opening words of Psalm 121 came to my mind as I set out through the mountains for my sister Mary Hoban’s funeral in Westport. What a beautiful Sunday, mountains majestic, rhododendron in its prime, the sun at its brightest, but the heart heavy. Could I hold it together? Would I end up blubbering on the altar? I turned to the Lord, inspired by the psalm: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” In the event I and everyone else got the help, the strength. Thank you Lord.
Mary and myself had gone back a long way, to the day of the big snow of 1947, the 25th of February. She was born into a white world when I was just a year old. Our father had to go on horseback to try and get help. Brose Walsh, the famous bandsman drove the doctor, Dr. O’Boyle I think it was, from Balla to attend at the birth. Our brother Joe, aged three, was being minded by our Aunt Kate and her daughter Nellie. He has memories of seeing the snow as high as the half-door of their house. Is it any wonder that our mother had devotion to Our Lady of The Snows?
Mary left this life on the Feast of The Sacred Heart of Jesus, the fiftieth anniversary of the funeral of her father, John Staunton of Ballydavock, Belcarra, who had died suddenly while working for Mayo County Council in Cong. She started her Leaving Cert exams a few days later without benefit of revision or time for concentration on anything but our loss, and attained five honours. She had a call to the National College of Art, but put that on hold, though she never lost interest, and painted, as well as doing all her other work throughout her life, She had been studying art for a number of years in the GMIT in Castlebar before Alzheimers came and gradually stole away the life that she had.
Dementia did not take away the love of her husband, Anthony, or Tony as she called him, feeling I suppose that he needed to be born again after he met her. As promised on their wedding day he loved her, and cared for her “in sickness and in health all the days of their lives.” Dementia did not steal the love of her children, Karen, John, Darragh or Ronan, the love of her grandchildren or extended family. They, with the help of Western Alheimers, doctors, nurses, carers, looked after her, and when she could no longer be cared for at home, Claremont NursHome in Claremorris who were a wonderful support, especially in her final illness.
The biggest setback in Mary and Tony’s life had been the death of their daughter, Aoife after a year and five months. In my mind’s eye I can still see Mary kiss and cuddle her little girl before, during and after her death. To see Tony carry the white coffin up the aisle of Saint Mary’s church, Westport was heartrending. But we have no monopoly of sorrow or sadness. How many other parents or families have carried children of all ages up that aisle? We included all of them in the prayers of her Mass.
As so many people remarked, Aoife was back in her mother’s arms again.
Our Lady of the Snows, pray for her.
Our Lady of the sunrise, pray for her.
Our Lady of sorrows and of dementia sufferers, pray that the medical and scientific world find a cure for that devastating disease.
Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas na bhFlaithis dá hanam.
Mary and myself had gone back a long way, to the day of the big snow of 1947, the 25th of February. She was born into a white world when I was just a year old. Our father had to go on horseback to try and get help. Brose Walsh, the famous bandsman drove the doctor, Dr. O’Boyle I think it was, from Balla to attend at the birth. Our brother Joe, aged three, was being minded by our Aunt Kate and her daughter Nellie. He has memories of seeing the snow as high as the half-door of their house. Is it any wonder that our mother had devotion to Our Lady of The Snows?
Mary left this life on the Feast of The Sacred Heart of Jesus, the fiftieth anniversary of the funeral of her father, John Staunton of Ballydavock, Belcarra, who had died suddenly while working for Mayo County Council in Cong. She started her Leaving Cert exams a few days later without benefit of revision or time for concentration on anything but our loss, and attained five honours. She had a call to the National College of Art, but put that on hold, though she never lost interest, and painted, as well as doing all her other work throughout her life, She had been studying art for a number of years in the GMIT in Castlebar before Alzheimers came and gradually stole away the life that she had.
Dementia did not take away the love of her husband, Anthony, or Tony as she called him, feeling I suppose that he needed to be born again after he met her. As promised on their wedding day he loved her, and cared for her “in sickness and in health all the days of their lives.” Dementia did not steal the love of her children, Karen, John, Darragh or Ronan, the love of her grandchildren or extended family. They, with the help of Western Alheimers, doctors, nurses, carers, looked after her, and when she could no longer be cared for at home, Claremont NursHome in Claremorris who were a wonderful support, especially in her final illness.
The biggest setback in Mary and Tony’s life had been the death of their daughter, Aoife after a year and five months. In my mind’s eye I can still see Mary kiss and cuddle her little girl before, during and after her death. To see Tony carry the white coffin up the aisle of Saint Mary’s church, Westport was heartrending. But we have no monopoly of sorrow or sadness. How many other parents or families have carried children of all ages up that aisle? We included all of them in the prayers of her Mass.
As so many people remarked, Aoife was back in her mother’s arms again.
Our Lady of the Snows, pray for her.
Our Lady of the sunrise, pray for her.
Our Lady of sorrows and of dementia sufferers, pray that the medical and scientific world find a cure for that devastating disease.
Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas na bhFlaithis dá hanam.
Week ending 23rd June
Tonight we have bonfire night, the eve of the feast of the birth of Saint John the Baptist, neatly arranged after the summer solistice, with only about one hundred and eighty two shopping days left till Christmas. It is a night we throw burning coals as blessing on crops, even if the coal from the fire is nearly as large as some of our crops nowadays. I often think of the Baptist as one of the hard done by characters of the New Testament, the burly bridesmaid in his camel hair coat stalking the desert as he paved the way for his fairly laidback cousin, Jesus. Prepare the way he did, in words many of us quote daily: “This is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John was the one who put his finger on the button with regard to Jesus and his importance..
John the Baptist was the patron saint of the Aran island of Inis Meáin in which I spent about nine years of my life at three different times, in the seventies, eighties and nineties of the last century. As part of the celebration of the local feast-day I arranged Mass in the old cemetery in 1973, probably the first Mass there in that historic place for a thousand years. It was a place of burial which was put on the map in a sense by the writings of John Millington Synge, the dramatist whose plays were largely inspired by his visits to the island in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. “Riders To The Sea” was based on a drowning that took place there in which the victim was identified by the unique stitches in his socks. Synge was fascinated by the keening at the graveside that helped convey the emotion of the loss of a fine young man to the sea.
A visiting agricultural inspector once remarked to me that the cemetery grass there must be among the most original in Ireland, as it had never been artificially fertilised.
Next weekend we have the feast of Peter and Paul on the 29th of June. A church holyday in my youth I still celebrate it as such in so far as I can, because of the importance of the men involved in the Christian story of salvation. In my first public sermon as a deacon in Fulham in 1970 I described Peter and Paul as “those two blackguards” which led to a mild reprimand from a gentle English Parish Priest. What I was trying to get across is that the road to sainthood is often littered with sins. Peter blew hot and cold in his younger days, promising more than he could deliver to Jesus before denying that he ever “knew the man,” on the night before his crucifixion. Paul switched from being an ardent enemy to an enthusiastic advocate of the way of Christ on the road to Damascus. The message is there for all of us.
Here in southwest Conamara local saints are highly honoured on their feastdays, Saint MacDara on the 16th of July on the offshore island on which his church, renovated in the 1970’s stands. He is honoured also in An Cheathru Rua and all around the area, as well as Carna. The name Dara or MacDara still retains its popularity at christening time, despite the arrival on the scene of many less traditional names. In the other side of this parish Saint Kieran or Ciaráin is honoured in Cill Chiaráin on his feastday, the 9th of September. It is the same Ciaráin who studied on Inis Mór in the Aran Islands, spent some time in Conamara, and is associated at a national level with Clonmacnoise. His name too lives on in the many boys named after him. Saint Patrick is honoured among the mountains, in Máméan on the Sunday after Reek Sunday, with ceremonies too on Saint Patrick’s Day and Good Friday. We won’t be running out of saints anytime soon.
John the Baptist was the patron saint of the Aran island of Inis Meáin in which I spent about nine years of my life at three different times, in the seventies, eighties and nineties of the last century. As part of the celebration of the local feast-day I arranged Mass in the old cemetery in 1973, probably the first Mass there in that historic place for a thousand years. It was a place of burial which was put on the map in a sense by the writings of John Millington Synge, the dramatist whose plays were largely inspired by his visits to the island in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. “Riders To The Sea” was based on a drowning that took place there in which the victim was identified by the unique stitches in his socks. Synge was fascinated by the keening at the graveside that helped convey the emotion of the loss of a fine young man to the sea.
A visiting agricultural inspector once remarked to me that the cemetery grass there must be among the most original in Ireland, as it had never been artificially fertilised.
Next weekend we have the feast of Peter and Paul on the 29th of June. A church holyday in my youth I still celebrate it as such in so far as I can, because of the importance of the men involved in the Christian story of salvation. In my first public sermon as a deacon in Fulham in 1970 I described Peter and Paul as “those two blackguards” which led to a mild reprimand from a gentle English Parish Priest. What I was trying to get across is that the road to sainthood is often littered with sins. Peter blew hot and cold in his younger days, promising more than he could deliver to Jesus before denying that he ever “knew the man,” on the night before his crucifixion. Paul switched from being an ardent enemy to an enthusiastic advocate of the way of Christ on the road to Damascus. The message is there for all of us.
Here in southwest Conamara local saints are highly honoured on their feastdays, Saint MacDara on the 16th of July on the offshore island on which his church, renovated in the 1970’s stands. He is honoured also in An Cheathru Rua and all around the area, as well as Carna. The name Dara or MacDara still retains its popularity at christening time, despite the arrival on the scene of many less traditional names. In the other side of this parish Saint Kieran or Ciaráin is honoured in Cill Chiaráin on his feastday, the 9th of September. It is the same Ciaráin who studied on Inis Mór in the Aran Islands, spent some time in Conamara, and is associated at a national level with Clonmacnoise. His name too lives on in the many boys named after him. Saint Patrick is honoured among the mountains, in Máméan on the Sunday after Reek Sunday, with ceremonies too on Saint Patrick’s Day and Good Friday. We won’t be running out of saints anytime soon.
Week ending 16th June 2015
“Take me anywhere except to the seaside,” a colleague based on an offshore island used to joke many years ago. I thought of that line as I was thinking of holidays in September, when the swallows and the Gaeilgeoirí (Summer students) are going or gone away. It is now almost five years since I returned to be close to the sea in Carna. Twentyfive of my forty-four years as a priest have been spent close to the Irish coastline, the other fifteen fairly near to the shore of Lough Mask, in Tourmakeady. Closeness to the water gives a particular resonance to gospel stories about Jesus and his fishermen apostles, about storms and dangers on the water, as well as of quieter moments, such as the psalm-line: “Near restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirit.”
It took me quite a while to adapt again to the vagaries of the sea after fifteen years away, to the ebb and flow of tides, to moods of quiet repose broken by flurries of wild waves, to white horses on the surface and waves breaking on the shore. I have enjoyed reacquainting myself with the fresh sea-smells as I walk along seaweed strewn beaches, smells which take me back instantly to early days in the smaller islands of Aran. It was a time when I had the energy as well as the luxury of walking right around my part of the parish in a single day.
Waves breaking white in the distance caught my glance on a recent Sunday morning. They had probably been there the previous day too, but I had not noticed. I asked myself: “Heve I begun to take the sea for granted? Will I soon find myself walking by without noticing it?” Having lived in so many beautiful places in Counties Galway and Mayo, the last thing I want is to lose that sense of awe and admiration that each bend of the road, each casual glance towards the horizon can bring.
Looking out across the low-lying area from the Twelve Bens to the sea, it has occurred to me that a tsunami such as that which follows an earthquake could cause devestation in this part of the country. This is not as far-fetched an idea as it might seem as the tsunami that followed the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 swept into Galway Bay and actually damaged the Spanish Arch as well as killing people. In the 1850’s fifteen men were washed off the cliffs in Inis Mór in the Aran Islands while fishing at least a hundred feet above sea-level. I have no idea if this was caused by an earthquake, but the wave could have come across the Atlantic or from the Carribean.
I suppose anything can happen but the good news is that people have survived in harsh conditions along our coasts for many centuries. As I watched a farming programme from Northern Ireland on UTV Ireland recently, I could only marvel at the land and the landscape. What a contrast the great big green fields both North and South are to the land in this part of the country- Conamara. It occurred to me that if I had a horse and a plough the only field in this parish big enough, level enough or rock-free enough to plough is the football pitch. Don’t worry, I have no intention of setting my spuds there. I am just pointing out the contrasts in terms of land inside the island of Ireland. Despite the terrain people still survived and thrived, especially in terms of culture, language, music and dance. And they have the sea. Take me anywhere as long as it has a shoreline.
It took me quite a while to adapt again to the vagaries of the sea after fifteen years away, to the ebb and flow of tides, to moods of quiet repose broken by flurries of wild waves, to white horses on the surface and waves breaking on the shore. I have enjoyed reacquainting myself with the fresh sea-smells as I walk along seaweed strewn beaches, smells which take me back instantly to early days in the smaller islands of Aran. It was a time when I had the energy as well as the luxury of walking right around my part of the parish in a single day.
Waves breaking white in the distance caught my glance on a recent Sunday morning. They had probably been there the previous day too, but I had not noticed. I asked myself: “Heve I begun to take the sea for granted? Will I soon find myself walking by without noticing it?” Having lived in so many beautiful places in Counties Galway and Mayo, the last thing I want is to lose that sense of awe and admiration that each bend of the road, each casual glance towards the horizon can bring.
Looking out across the low-lying area from the Twelve Bens to the sea, it has occurred to me that a tsunami such as that which follows an earthquake could cause devestation in this part of the country. This is not as far-fetched an idea as it might seem as the tsunami that followed the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 swept into Galway Bay and actually damaged the Spanish Arch as well as killing people. In the 1850’s fifteen men were washed off the cliffs in Inis Mór in the Aran Islands while fishing at least a hundred feet above sea-level. I have no idea if this was caused by an earthquake, but the wave could have come across the Atlantic or from the Carribean.
I suppose anything can happen but the good news is that people have survived in harsh conditions along our coasts for many centuries. As I watched a farming programme from Northern Ireland on UTV Ireland recently, I could only marvel at the land and the landscape. What a contrast the great big green fields both North and South are to the land in this part of the country- Conamara. It occurred to me that if I had a horse and a plough the only field in this parish big enough, level enough or rock-free enough to plough is the football pitch. Don’t worry, I have no intention of setting my spuds there. I am just pointing out the contrasts in terms of land inside the island of Ireland. Despite the terrain people still survived and thrived, especially in terms of culture, language, music and dance. And they have the sea. Take me anywhere as long as it has a shoreline.
Week ending 9th June 2015
Mention “An tAthair Peadar,” the Irish for “Fr. Peter” almost anywhere in the Conamara Gaeltacht and you will be regaled with stories about Father Peter Connolly, Parish Prieat of the parish of Clonbur who died suddenly in his family home in Milltown a couple of weeks ago. He is remembered fondly here in the parish of Carna/Cill Chiaráin where he served as Parish Priest for seven years before moving to Clonbur almost five years ago. Some of his close friends used to regularly ask me: “Cén chaoí an bhfuil (How is) Peadar Mór?” It was as if he had been adopted as a Conamara man, and why not? He had served Gaeltacht parishes, or ones with a large Irish speaking population since his ordination in 1977, had mastered the language and achieved a reputation as a preacher in both Irish and English.
I remember him coming as a newly ordained, almost baby-faced priest to An Tulach, the area in which TG4 is now situated in the summer of 1977. After seven years as a priest, and then stationed in nearby An Cheathrú Rua (Carraroe) I felt like a veteran at that stage. I did not know him personally prior to that, as I had just finished in Maynooth when he started. He went to the Aran Island of Inis Mór the following year and his six years there made him one of the longest serving curates on the islands. He subsequently worked in the parishes of Achill, Cor na Móna in the parish of Clonbur, An Cheathrú Rua, and here in Carna, before returning to Clonbur as Parish Priest. The many tributes paid to him on social media, and in particular on the website of the Archdiocese of Tuam, 4,000 hits a day at one stage, attest to the affection in which Peadar was held by present and past parishioners.
I remember being at a wedding reception in The Castlecourt Hotel in Westport soon after Peadar was appointed Parish Priest of Carna in 2003. He was being his usually ebullient self at the top table, jacket hung on the back of the chair displaying a fine pair of braces, or ‘galluses,’ as we used call them in the old days. When asked to say a few words I naturally congratulated the bride and groom at first, before adding my congratulations to “An tAthair Peadar,” who had performed the ceremony earlier in Cor na Móna church. “His fine pair of galluses will be a great support to him in his new parish,” I remarked. He never let me forget it, promising good naturedly to “get me” when a similar situation arose.
While many people referred to Father Peter’s sense of fun and the times they enjoyed together, he is probably remembered most for his kindness and compassion at times of tragedy and sorrow. As local school chaplain at the time of the murder of a young girl in the nineties, he is credited with doing an awful lot to help her classmates and schoolmates to come through those harrowing times. Eleven years ago a fishing boat, the Saint Oliver was lost off Carna, with some of his present (Carna) and past parishioners from the Aran Islands drowned. Another parishioner was lost when a Galway hooker sank on the way back from Cruinniú na mBád in Kinvara. An tAthair Peadar was not there just for the good times but for the sad and difficult times as well. He is missed. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sé.
I remember him coming as a newly ordained, almost baby-faced priest to An Tulach, the area in which TG4 is now situated in the summer of 1977. After seven years as a priest, and then stationed in nearby An Cheathrú Rua (Carraroe) I felt like a veteran at that stage. I did not know him personally prior to that, as I had just finished in Maynooth when he started. He went to the Aran Island of Inis Mór the following year and his six years there made him one of the longest serving curates on the islands. He subsequently worked in the parishes of Achill, Cor na Móna in the parish of Clonbur, An Cheathrú Rua, and here in Carna, before returning to Clonbur as Parish Priest. The many tributes paid to him on social media, and in particular on the website of the Archdiocese of Tuam, 4,000 hits a day at one stage, attest to the affection in which Peadar was held by present and past parishioners.
I remember being at a wedding reception in The Castlecourt Hotel in Westport soon after Peadar was appointed Parish Priest of Carna in 2003. He was being his usually ebullient self at the top table, jacket hung on the back of the chair displaying a fine pair of braces, or ‘galluses,’ as we used call them in the old days. When asked to say a few words I naturally congratulated the bride and groom at first, before adding my congratulations to “An tAthair Peadar,” who had performed the ceremony earlier in Cor na Móna church. “His fine pair of galluses will be a great support to him in his new parish,” I remarked. He never let me forget it, promising good naturedly to “get me” when a similar situation arose.
While many people referred to Father Peter’s sense of fun and the times they enjoyed together, he is probably remembered most for his kindness and compassion at times of tragedy and sorrow. As local school chaplain at the time of the murder of a young girl in the nineties, he is credited with doing an awful lot to help her classmates and schoolmates to come through those harrowing times. Eleven years ago a fishing boat, the Saint Oliver was lost off Carna, with some of his present (Carna) and past parishioners from the Aran Islands drowned. Another parishioner was lost when a Galway hooker sank on the way back from Cruinniú na mBád in Kinvara. An tAthair Peadar was not there just for the good times but for the sad and difficult times as well. He is missed. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sé.
Week ending 2nd June 2015
I was thinking of Shakespeare’s ‘seven ages’ in recent weeks as religious ceremonies marked and celebrated various aspects of growing up, christenings, first communions, confirmation, a secondary school graduation, a wedding, a fiftieth wedding anniversary. We even had a christening in the local Nursing Home. No, not a miracle birth, but the inclusion of the child’s grandmother in the babies’ baptismal ceremony. Before that we had a bit of summer and it was most welcome. The long spell of cold, wind and squally rain that followed the arrival of the cuckoo will hopefully come to an end and may be replaced by the kind of weather which usually indicates the exam season. Still, the exams will be over before very long, and who knows? We may still have a summer.
In South Conamara as in most Gaeltacht areas the summer means not just the arrival of the cuckoo and the swallows, but also the ‘Gaelgóirí,’ the influx of students who stay in local houses, liven up the roads and beaches and bring an buzz of life to an area. From my own point of view I have been very impressed since coming to Carna/Cill Chiaráin parish by the way the young students participate in Saturday evening Mass, take to the Irish language hymns like ducks to water and generally add to such celebrations in a far more organised and disciplined way than I remember teenage students thirty or forty years ago.
Among my memories from forty-two years ago was a young girl arriving at the nurses’ house on the island of Inis Oirr (Inishere) with a dart sticking out of her head. It necessitated the lifeboat being called from Inis Mór to take her to hospital in Galway, from which she was thankfully discharged safe and well the following day. Another student sneaked out to join friends who were camping on the island. They shared a bottle of vodka and when the young girl passed out her friends tried to revive her by throwing her into the tide. Thankfully she too lived to tell the tale. As she is now in her fifties I wonder does she tell her grandchildren how bold some children of the seventies really were. If such things were to happen now there would be a national outcry.
It has often been remarked of students attending Irish language colleges in the summer months that they cry when they arrive and they cry again when they are ready to go home. They cry at the start from homesickness, and for many it is their first time away from home for an extended period on their own. Three weeks sounds like a very long time at that stage, but by the time it ends, the fun and camraderie, the new friends and often the falling in love with someone from the other end of the country leads to tears again when it is time to return home. The organisation and discipline, the full day and the exercise from games and ceilís helps to pass the couple of weeks very quickly.
In recent years the TG4 series of programmes:”Bean a’tí sa chistín” gave an idea of the high standard of food provided during the Irish courses. A final I watched was so competitive that it woud far excel most ‘Come Dine With Me’ programmes and even challenge a couple of the gourmet chefs. Hopefully we will have a few more of the ‘seven ages’ to enjoy before the summer is out, and then there are the local festivals in honour of Saint Mac Dara and Saint Ciarán, the currach and sailboat races, and maybe even an outing for the Green and Red against the Maroon and White.
In South Conamara as in most Gaeltacht areas the summer means not just the arrival of the cuckoo and the swallows, but also the ‘Gaelgóirí,’ the influx of students who stay in local houses, liven up the roads and beaches and bring an buzz of life to an area. From my own point of view I have been very impressed since coming to Carna/Cill Chiaráin parish by the way the young students participate in Saturday evening Mass, take to the Irish language hymns like ducks to water and generally add to such celebrations in a far more organised and disciplined way than I remember teenage students thirty or forty years ago.
Among my memories from forty-two years ago was a young girl arriving at the nurses’ house on the island of Inis Oirr (Inishere) with a dart sticking out of her head. It necessitated the lifeboat being called from Inis Mór to take her to hospital in Galway, from which she was thankfully discharged safe and well the following day. Another student sneaked out to join friends who were camping on the island. They shared a bottle of vodka and when the young girl passed out her friends tried to revive her by throwing her into the tide. Thankfully she too lived to tell the tale. As she is now in her fifties I wonder does she tell her grandchildren how bold some children of the seventies really were. If such things were to happen now there would be a national outcry.
It has often been remarked of students attending Irish language colleges in the summer months that they cry when they arrive and they cry again when they are ready to go home. They cry at the start from homesickness, and for many it is their first time away from home for an extended period on their own. Three weeks sounds like a very long time at that stage, but by the time it ends, the fun and camraderie, the new friends and often the falling in love with someone from the other end of the country leads to tears again when it is time to return home. The organisation and discipline, the full day and the exercise from games and ceilís helps to pass the couple of weeks very quickly.
In recent years the TG4 series of programmes:”Bean a’tí sa chistín” gave an idea of the high standard of food provided during the Irish courses. A final I watched was so competitive that it woud far excel most ‘Come Dine With Me’ programmes and even challenge a couple of the gourmet chefs. Hopefully we will have a few more of the ‘seven ages’ to enjoy before the summer is out, and then there are the local festivals in honour of Saint Mac Dara and Saint Ciarán, the currach and sailboat races, and maybe even an outing for the Green and Red against the Maroon and White.