Week ending 31st May 2011 www.tourmakeady.com
Dr. Garrett Fitzgerald did not plan to upstage the visits of Queen Elizabeth 11 or President Barak Obama to this country, but there is a sense in which he overshadowed both by the memories his death evoked in people who had lived through the second half of the last century. For those who had supported his constitutional crusade to bring about a more pluralst and liberal Republic he was a political colossus. For others he was somewhat of an absent-minded professor who had somehow wandered onto the political scene, a loveable character somwhat out of his depth, a man who meant well but was better on the theories than the practice.
Although not a supporter of either of the main political parties in Dáil Éireann (Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) at the time I was an enthusiastic supporter of his crusade. I voted ‘the wrong way’ from the leadership of my own church’s perspective in all of the constitutional amendment referenda of the eighties. As one of only two priests in Ireland to publicly support the introduction of civil divorce in 1986 I was ‘silenced’ for the duration of the campaign, not for opposing the views of the Catholic hierarchy, but because a Limerick Parish Priest complained that I had entered his parish without permission to join Jim Kemmy and Michael D Higgins on a pro civil divorce rally As I predicted at the time the sky did not fall when divorce was eventually narrowly accepted by the voters about ten years later.
Dr. Conor Cruise O’Brien’s observation that there was ‘steel under all that wool’ of Garrett Fitzgerald’s hairstyle rings true when we look back on his dealings with Europe where his promise/threat to use a veto on the fisheries issue while Minister for Foreign Affairs endered him to the fishermen I knew in the Aran Islands where I worked at the time. The work he put into rebuilding his Party after 1977 was only matched by present Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD in the past decade or so. The quiet but steely diplomacy that led up to the Anglo Irish Agreement in which he did not so much face down but out manouver British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher played a big part in what eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement and the level of international and inter-party co-operation we now have in Northern Ireland.
Dr. Fitzgerald spent more of his life as a journalist than as a politician, and it is worth noting that he conributed more than a thousand articles to The Irish Times since he retired from Dáil Éireann in 1992. As recently as the last election and for some time afterwards he was writing incisively about politics, economics and religion. Although forever associated with Fine Gael, it was as an independent observer that the commented on fiscal matters. During the Lisbon Treaty debates he had no problem supporting Fianna Fáil Taoisigh, Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen on what he considered matters of international importance. Similarly with regard to religion he was a committed Catholic but he did not hesitate to criticize the church where necessary. As his mother was a Presbyterian he inherited some of that ‘protest-ant’ mentality which would also have given him a rapport with both sides in the Northern conflict. .Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas síoraí na bhFlaithis dó.
Although not a supporter of either of the main political parties in Dáil Éireann (Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) at the time I was an enthusiastic supporter of his crusade. I voted ‘the wrong way’ from the leadership of my own church’s perspective in all of the constitutional amendment referenda of the eighties. As one of only two priests in Ireland to publicly support the introduction of civil divorce in 1986 I was ‘silenced’ for the duration of the campaign, not for opposing the views of the Catholic hierarchy, but because a Limerick Parish Priest complained that I had entered his parish without permission to join Jim Kemmy and Michael D Higgins on a pro civil divorce rally As I predicted at the time the sky did not fall when divorce was eventually narrowly accepted by the voters about ten years later.
Dr. Conor Cruise O’Brien’s observation that there was ‘steel under all that wool’ of Garrett Fitzgerald’s hairstyle rings true when we look back on his dealings with Europe where his promise/threat to use a veto on the fisheries issue while Minister for Foreign Affairs endered him to the fishermen I knew in the Aran Islands where I worked at the time. The work he put into rebuilding his Party after 1977 was only matched by present Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD in the past decade or so. The quiet but steely diplomacy that led up to the Anglo Irish Agreement in which he did not so much face down but out manouver British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher played a big part in what eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement and the level of international and inter-party co-operation we now have in Northern Ireland.
Dr. Fitzgerald spent more of his life as a journalist than as a politician, and it is worth noting that he conributed more than a thousand articles to The Irish Times since he retired from Dáil Éireann in 1992. As recently as the last election and for some time afterwards he was writing incisively about politics, economics and religion. Although forever associated with Fine Gael, it was as an independent observer that the commented on fiscal matters. During the Lisbon Treaty debates he had no problem supporting Fianna Fáil Taoisigh, Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen on what he considered matters of international importance. Similarly with regard to religion he was a committed Catholic but he did not hesitate to criticize the church where necessary. As his mother was a Presbyterian he inherited some of that ‘protest-ant’ mentality which would also have given him a rapport with both sides in the Northern conflict. .Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas síoraí na bhFlaithis dó.
Week ending 24th May 2011 www.tourmakeady.com
The Whit weather came a little before its time, as if it was not aware that we had a late Easter. The rattles of thunder, the occasional downpour have always been a traditional feature of the month of May. Metreologists have their own meaning for it, meeting of hot and cold air, etc, but Christians have traditionally associated it with the Holy Spirit coming on the Apostles with a sound like thunder It is a time of the year that church focus moves from Jesus, the second person of the Blessed Trinity to the Third Person we know as the Holy Spirit.
The same Holy Spirit came in for some re-branding about forty years ago, as it was known as the Holy Ghost when I was growing up. I suppose the word ghost had scary connotations and it could have been seen as implying something dead. Spirit on the other hand implies life. The Holy Spirit is the life-force of God which we see as living within us even if we are not always inclined to let it out. Just as we are often inclined to allow the God-son Jesus remain boxed up in a fancy box called a tabernacle in the church, we are sometimes inclined to neatly file away the Spirit in case it might bother anyone.
One of my over-repetitive jokes as I close a church door or gate at the end of the day is that I am doing it in case God escapes. God knows it is a joke but sub-consciously it carries a grain of truth. It is handy for us to keep God stashed away at arms length. It is nice to have the power with us so long as it doesn’t bother us or anyone else too much. A place for everything and everything in its place, including God. We can be scared of what might happen if we were really to allow God get off the leash in case he might lose the run of himself.
It happened before, and where did he end up? Like a scarecrow on a cross between two thieves. Not very politically correct if you ask me. Then he lost it altogether when he died and came back like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, arriving in locked rooms or walking the roads with disciples who did not recognise him until he broke bread at table with him. He even went so far as to put on a barbeque for some of them, lighting a fire on the strand and cooking fish for them when they came ashore with a great haul of fish. Water into wine, walking on water, calming storms, there was always that touch of a showman about him. No wonder we like to keep him under wraps as much as we can.
Then he took off. Just like that. He had done all a person could do. God the human had lived and died, taught and showed the way, but as one of us he was confined by space and time and the constraints of this world. But he did not go away without making one of the great promises: “I will be with you always, yes until the end of time.” How was he to do that? The Holy Spirit, the Jesus Spirit, the Risen Jesus glorified and unrestrained, unconstrained, unconfined, unrefined in so far as it was the same incarnated, en-fleshed Godman who had walked the roads of Gallilee. He is back. Without a vengeance. “Come Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.”
The same Holy Spirit came in for some re-branding about forty years ago, as it was known as the Holy Ghost when I was growing up. I suppose the word ghost had scary connotations and it could have been seen as implying something dead. Spirit on the other hand implies life. The Holy Spirit is the life-force of God which we see as living within us even if we are not always inclined to let it out. Just as we are often inclined to allow the God-son Jesus remain boxed up in a fancy box called a tabernacle in the church, we are sometimes inclined to neatly file away the Spirit in case it might bother anyone.
One of my over-repetitive jokes as I close a church door or gate at the end of the day is that I am doing it in case God escapes. God knows it is a joke but sub-consciously it carries a grain of truth. It is handy for us to keep God stashed away at arms length. It is nice to have the power with us so long as it doesn’t bother us or anyone else too much. A place for everything and everything in its place, including God. We can be scared of what might happen if we were really to allow God get off the leash in case he might lose the run of himself.
It happened before, and where did he end up? Like a scarecrow on a cross between two thieves. Not very politically correct if you ask me. Then he lost it altogether when he died and came back like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, arriving in locked rooms or walking the roads with disciples who did not recognise him until he broke bread at table with him. He even went so far as to put on a barbeque for some of them, lighting a fire on the strand and cooking fish for them when they came ashore with a great haul of fish. Water into wine, walking on water, calming storms, there was always that touch of a showman about him. No wonder we like to keep him under wraps as much as we can.
Then he took off. Just like that. He had done all a person could do. God the human had lived and died, taught and showed the way, but as one of us he was confined by space and time and the constraints of this world. But he did not go away without making one of the great promises: “I will be with you always, yes until the end of time.” How was he to do that? The Holy Spirit, the Jesus Spirit, the Risen Jesus glorified and unrestrained, unconstrained, unconfined, unrefined in so far as it was the same incarnated, en-fleshed Godman who had walked the roads of Gallilee. He is back. Without a vengeance. “Come Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.”
Week ending 17th May 2011 www.tourmakeady.com
It is with great pleasure that I announce the birth of six baby ducklings to lachan (duck) and bardal (drake) the wilduck couple who seem to have taken up permament residence in the small lake or large pond which is just a stone’s throw or a duck’s quack from the back window of Carna presbytery. Although I played no part in the hatching I feel I have a bond with these, my closest neighbours. It is lovely to hear them quacking away with a full Gaelic blas as I sit out and take the sun at the back of the house.
They have been joined in recent days by two beautiful swans, but there seems to be no love lost between the two sets of birds. The ducks steer their progeny under bushes or take them out on the bank if the swans get too close. The swans seem to ignore them as they stick their long necks underwater in their search for worms or whatever is is that they find there. I suspect the distance kept by the ducks has something to do with the story of the ugly duckling which grew up to be a swan. I just thought – I may have got it wrong – that I heard the duck say to the drake: “Who would want to look like a big white goose anyway?”
The pond which was a sheet of ice just a few montha ago is now covered with water lillies. It is lovely to watch the wind turn them into an armada of little sails before allowing them to flap back again on the water-top. The ducks weave in and out between the lillies with their babies following for the most part. On one occasion I saw half the little ones leave the procession, but they were soon ushered back into line by one of the anxious parents.
An occasional water-hen does his or her own business around the fringes of the lake. They remind me of similar birds on a little lough a few hundred yards from the front of the house in which I grew up in Ballydavock, about halfway between Belcarra and Clogher. I still remember the call of one of the birds which lived in that lough and livened up the night air with what sounded like a goat’s call. It had retained its Irish name in an English speaking area, the mionnáin aerach, literally the flying kid-goat.
The crane too had held on to its Irish name, the cradhain fhada. It flapped slowly across the bog or stood on one leg in the lough as if it was enough to wet one foot at a time. The bog too held on to Irish words such as spairteach for soft wet turf. It was a word I came across many times years later in the Aran Islands where islanders would claim that the turf brought across from Conamara in Galway hookers was nothing but spairteach. This was, of course, a bargaining ploy to try and drive down the price of turf, or more often than not, a bit of harmless banter.
Such wandering thoughts come from watching my lovely wandering ducklings as they seem to travel quicker and quicker behind their parents. Soon enough they will learn to fly, but I hope they will continue to come back to the pond of their birth. My biggest regret is that I will never be able to look a crispy duck from the Chinese takeaway in the eye again.
They have been joined in recent days by two beautiful swans, but there seems to be no love lost between the two sets of birds. The ducks steer their progeny under bushes or take them out on the bank if the swans get too close. The swans seem to ignore them as they stick their long necks underwater in their search for worms or whatever is is that they find there. I suspect the distance kept by the ducks has something to do with the story of the ugly duckling which grew up to be a swan. I just thought – I may have got it wrong – that I heard the duck say to the drake: “Who would want to look like a big white goose anyway?”
The pond which was a sheet of ice just a few montha ago is now covered with water lillies. It is lovely to watch the wind turn them into an armada of little sails before allowing them to flap back again on the water-top. The ducks weave in and out between the lillies with their babies following for the most part. On one occasion I saw half the little ones leave the procession, but they were soon ushered back into line by one of the anxious parents.
An occasional water-hen does his or her own business around the fringes of the lake. They remind me of similar birds on a little lough a few hundred yards from the front of the house in which I grew up in Ballydavock, about halfway between Belcarra and Clogher. I still remember the call of one of the birds which lived in that lough and livened up the night air with what sounded like a goat’s call. It had retained its Irish name in an English speaking area, the mionnáin aerach, literally the flying kid-goat.
The crane too had held on to its Irish name, the cradhain fhada. It flapped slowly across the bog or stood on one leg in the lough as if it was enough to wet one foot at a time. The bog too held on to Irish words such as spairteach for soft wet turf. It was a word I came across many times years later in the Aran Islands where islanders would claim that the turf brought across from Conamara in Galway hookers was nothing but spairteach. This was, of course, a bargaining ploy to try and drive down the price of turf, or more often than not, a bit of harmless banter.
Such wandering thoughts come from watching my lovely wandering ducklings as they seem to travel quicker and quicker behind their parents. Soon enough they will learn to fly, but I hope they will continue to come back to the pond of their birth. My biggest regret is that I will never be able to look a crispy duck from the Chinese takeaway in the eye again.
Week ending 10th May 2011 www.tourmakeady.com
Forty five years ago, while the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the 1916 Easter Rising were in full swing, our Professor of Ethics in Maynooth raised the uncomfortable question of the morality of violence. Matthew O’Donnell was a priest of the Diocese of Galway and in many ways a breath of fresh air among colleagues in the Philosophy Department of that college at the time. He seemed to be an intensely private man, but he came out of his shell for the 1916 commemoration. He arranged for veterans of 1916 who had fought in the GPO or Boland’s Mills to speak to us about their experiences in an extra-curricular setting, from which we got firsthand accounts of that eventful week as well as hearing of experiences in Froncach prison camp in the aftermath of the Rising.
These were celebratory occasions in which those men, now in or about their seventies or older were roundly applauded for their bravery and courage. It was back in the lecture hall in ethics class that the question of morality was discussed. It smacked somewhat of undermining the bravura of the celebrations, but it was nevertheless an important question. Many of us concluded that the results of the 1917 elections in which Sinn Féin almost wiped the Irish Party of John Redmond off the map justified the Rising in which an unrepresentative minority had taken up arms to fight for a Republic. The Home Rule bill which had been delayed by the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 was seen as further justification.
Events of the following years brought those discussions about violence back into focus. The Civil Rights movement in the United States under the leadership of the Reverend Martin Luther King pointed towards the success of non violent politics even when met by violence. Anything seemed possible in those mid to late sixties as Civil Rights movements sprang up all over the place in much the same way as one Arab country after another has in recent times followed the example of Tunisia and Egypt.
Change seemed possible in Northern Ireland without violence other than that of the State, but this hope quickly foundered as faith was again put in the bomb and the bullet as a way to attain political ends.
This basically failed. The blood, sweat and tears were in vain. Lessons were learned the hard way, as Sinn Féin to their great credit followed the wellworn path followed by among others, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Clann na Poblachta, and the various shades of Official Sinn Féin which ended up in The Labour Party. We now have Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland using the very same condemnations of the Real IRA used not long ago about himself and his comrades. I agree with every word he says in that context, and especially with regard to the will of the people as expressed in the aftermath of the Good Friday agreement of 1998, but can see how that will not convince those who feel that they and they only are the real deal.
As we approach 2016 we will need to focus on the pain, suffering, bereavement and pain of the past century as well as what has been achieved politically in the meantime.
The sad funeral of Police Constable Ronan Kerr as well as the visit of Queen Elizabeth remind us of how far we have or have not come. The Peace Process is just that, an ongoing process, far from finished. Between now and the centenery of the Rising we need another referendum, North and South to let the ‘Real IRA’ know just how unreal they are.
These were celebratory occasions in which those men, now in or about their seventies or older were roundly applauded for their bravery and courage. It was back in the lecture hall in ethics class that the question of morality was discussed. It smacked somewhat of undermining the bravura of the celebrations, but it was nevertheless an important question. Many of us concluded that the results of the 1917 elections in which Sinn Féin almost wiped the Irish Party of John Redmond off the map justified the Rising in which an unrepresentative minority had taken up arms to fight for a Republic. The Home Rule bill which had been delayed by the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 was seen as further justification.
Events of the following years brought those discussions about violence back into focus. The Civil Rights movement in the United States under the leadership of the Reverend Martin Luther King pointed towards the success of non violent politics even when met by violence. Anything seemed possible in those mid to late sixties as Civil Rights movements sprang up all over the place in much the same way as one Arab country after another has in recent times followed the example of Tunisia and Egypt.
Change seemed possible in Northern Ireland without violence other than that of the State, but this hope quickly foundered as faith was again put in the bomb and the bullet as a way to attain political ends.
This basically failed. The blood, sweat and tears were in vain. Lessons were learned the hard way, as Sinn Féin to their great credit followed the wellworn path followed by among others, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Clann na Poblachta, and the various shades of Official Sinn Féin which ended up in The Labour Party. We now have Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland using the very same condemnations of the Real IRA used not long ago about himself and his comrades. I agree with every word he says in that context, and especially with regard to the will of the people as expressed in the aftermath of the Good Friday agreement of 1998, but can see how that will not convince those who feel that they and they only are the real deal.
As we approach 2016 we will need to focus on the pain, suffering, bereavement and pain of the past century as well as what has been achieved politically in the meantime.
The sad funeral of Police Constable Ronan Kerr as well as the visit of Queen Elizabeth remind us of how far we have or have not come. The Peace Process is just that, an ongoing process, far from finished. Between now and the centenery of the Rising we need another referendum, North and South to let the ‘Real IRA’ know just how unreal they are.
Week ending 3rd May 2011 www.tourmakeady.com
I think this is the the first year in which I have ever heard the cuckoo before Easter, but then Easter is seldom as late as it was this year. May Day came just a week after Easter Sunday. Here in Carna it brought another festival, Féile Joe Éinniú in memory of one of the greatest sean-nós singers of them all, a man whose store of English ballads probably equalled the number of Irish songs he picked up from parents, family and neighbours. His style of singing impressed the Dubliners and the Clancy brothers. It is interesting to think of Liam Clancy being influenced by Seosamh Ó hÉanaigh and he himself influencing Bob Dylan. I am not suggesting that ‘blowing in the wind’ blew all the way from Carna, but it is interesting that a style of singing that seemed to be on its last legs a quarter of a century ago is being taken up by many young people, as is sean-nós dancing.
As I write this I don’t know what effect a small initiative to revive the notion of the flowers of May in honour of Mary, mother of Jesus on May Day will have. I invited families to set a flower or plant or shrub around the local church in Mary’s honour and in memory of their dead. Rather than going to expense I suggested a root or a slip from a rose or other flower that has been in their family for generations. I have always liked the old roses that grew around the doors of thatched cottages which remind us more of those who put them there than even their headstones in the cemetery do. I still see some of them grow outside the ruins of houses long replaced by more comfortable dwellings. Those old walls carry many memories as well as good ghosts of the great people who made their lives and livelihoods there. By the time this article is published I hope Lá Bealtaine (May Day) will have become Lá na mBláth (The day of the flowers.)
The cuckoo didn’t seem to bring the traditional gairfean na cuaiche (the cuckoo’s squall) with her this year, although there were a few nasty enough squalls some weeks earler, one of which drove a freighter on to the rocks at Rossaveal. Closer to home it made firewood of my picnic table which I had just brought out for the hopefully long hot summer. Generally speaking the weather has been excellent, the payoff for a cold, frosty and snowy winter seeming to be a natural summer. For many years there did not seem to be much difference between summer and winter, but for the past two we seem to be getting more natural seasons. We could put up with the harsh frost from time to time if the sun shone when it should.
Now that Easter is over and the long and hopefully balmy evenings stretch out in front of us, a clergyperson’s thoughts tend to turn to clerical changes in the forthcoming not-so-merry-go-round. After just a year in Carna I feel that I have a certain immunity for this and a number of coming years. I have barely recovered from last year’s change from Tourmakeady, so I intend to keep my head down and watch the tooing and froing from a distance. I don’t envy anyone who has to face packing bag and baggage and upping sticks to another parish. Between the emotional break involved and the physical sorting and shifting of a houseful of books and baggage, once a decade should be enough for anyone.
As I write this I don’t know what effect a small initiative to revive the notion of the flowers of May in honour of Mary, mother of Jesus on May Day will have. I invited families to set a flower or plant or shrub around the local church in Mary’s honour and in memory of their dead. Rather than going to expense I suggested a root or a slip from a rose or other flower that has been in their family for generations. I have always liked the old roses that grew around the doors of thatched cottages which remind us more of those who put them there than even their headstones in the cemetery do. I still see some of them grow outside the ruins of houses long replaced by more comfortable dwellings. Those old walls carry many memories as well as good ghosts of the great people who made their lives and livelihoods there. By the time this article is published I hope Lá Bealtaine (May Day) will have become Lá na mBláth (The day of the flowers.)
The cuckoo didn’t seem to bring the traditional gairfean na cuaiche (the cuckoo’s squall) with her this year, although there were a few nasty enough squalls some weeks earler, one of which drove a freighter on to the rocks at Rossaveal. Closer to home it made firewood of my picnic table which I had just brought out for the hopefully long hot summer. Generally speaking the weather has been excellent, the payoff for a cold, frosty and snowy winter seeming to be a natural summer. For many years there did not seem to be much difference between summer and winter, but for the past two we seem to be getting more natural seasons. We could put up with the harsh frost from time to time if the sun shone when it should.
Now that Easter is over and the long and hopefully balmy evenings stretch out in front of us, a clergyperson’s thoughts tend to turn to clerical changes in the forthcoming not-so-merry-go-round. After just a year in Carna I feel that I have a certain immunity for this and a number of coming years. I have barely recovered from last year’s change from Tourmakeady, so I intend to keep my head down and watch the tooing and froing from a distance. I don’t envy anyone who has to face packing bag and baggage and upping sticks to another parish. Between the emotional break involved and the physical sorting and shifting of a houseful of books and baggage, once a decade should be enough for anyone.
