Week ending 27th May 2014
I sometimes feel that the year takes a running jump after Easter, especially a late Easter as we had this year. One minute I am plodding along with all my concentration on the festival of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The next minute I realise that we are almost halfway through the year. This was brought home to me recently when someone remarked that the feast of Carna’s local saint, MacDara was only two months away. This arose in the context of the damage done by winter storms to Mace pier from which about a thousand pilgrims embark on July 16th to celebrate Lá Mhic Dara (MacDara;s Day) with Mass on the island long named in his honour. It is highly unlikely that the pier will be repaired in time, so this year’s Mass is likely to be on the island of Ireland instead.
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, weddings, a wedding anniversary, and unfortunately, funerals. After all that the summer will hopefully come and it will be most welcome. 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 years ago was a young girl arriving at the nurses’ house on the Aran 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 both now in their fifties I wonder do they tell their 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 thay 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, but by the time it ends, the fun and camraderie, the new friends and often 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.
My first public appearance as a priest of this parish was on Saint MacDara’s day four years ago. How quickly the years fly when one reaches Shakespeare’s sixth or seventh age. Cloud Nine and Seventh Heaven are beginning to beckon brightly on the horizon.
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, weddings, a wedding anniversary, and unfortunately, funerals. After all that the summer will hopefully come and it will be most welcome. 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 years ago was a young girl arriving at the nurses’ house on the Aran 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 both now in their fifties I wonder do they tell their 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 thay 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, but by the time it ends, the fun and camraderie, the new friends and often 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.
My first public appearance as a priest of this parish was on Saint MacDara’s day four years ago. How quickly the years fly when one reaches Shakespeare’s sixth or seventh age. Cloud Nine and Seventh Heaven are beginning to beckon brightly on the horizon.
Week ending 20th May 2014
Revelations by whistleblowers about allegations to do with some members of An Garda Síochána obviously came as a surprise and a shock to politicians of all parties in Dáil and Seanad Éireann. Some of the same politicians have excoriated the hierarchy and clergy of the Roman Catholic church for what was happening in their watches with regard to child sexual abuse. In both cases some people did know and closed their eyes or protected their institutions, but in most cases the vast majority apparently did not know. Perhaps those politicians who have served in the national parliament in the lifetime of the Letterfrack, Daingean or Goldenbridge reformatories may reflect on what happened, seemingly unknown to them as legislators, before they have too loud a go at others for their failings.
I think I may have mentioned in a previous article that as a young priest on the islands of Inis Oirr and Inis Meáin in the Aran Islands in the early seventies of the last century, I posted albs and altar cloths to be washed and ironed in Galway’s Magdalen Laundry without having any idea of who worked there and why. It would be interesting to see the order books and receipts from that laundry. I have little doubt that some people very prominent in Irish life sent their white shirts there to be washed and ironed between dances in Salthill’s Seapoint ballroom or the then Great Southern Hotel. Do I condemn them for that? No. They knew as little about it as I did, I’m sure, but perhaps they should mention their custom as a prelude to their condemnations of those who ran such laundries.
I am not in the business of criticising politicians when I make observations of this nature, just pointing out that we can all have double standards in such matters. I have the height of respect for every politician standing in the forthcoming local and European elections as well as those who stand for the Dáil. It takes courage and idealism for anyone to stand out from the crowd and put up with inevitable criticism, complaints or generalised slagging and condemnation. Many people enjoy the buzz of politics, and they would need to, given long nights, interminable meetings and the often slow pace of progress, particularly at times of cutbacks and money shortages. In my forty-three years as a priest I have been on many community councils and co-operatives, not to speak of school management boards, and have been impressed by the level of commitment and hard work, particularly of local politicians. I have seen them in action more often than their national or European counterparts.
Politics has been a bruising business for all of the political parties in the run-up to the European and local elections. Water-charges, the resignation of a Minister, the arrest of a Party leader who went voluntarily to Belfast, the on-off selection of a former Minister in Dun Laoghaire, low polling by the Labour Party in early opinion polls, not to speak of whatever may have happened since I wrote this. It must be a great time to be an Independent candidate. There will be winners and losers, surprises, swings and roundabouts. The counts will make for great radio and television as well as filling the pages of newspapers and all kind of online services for all of us who are interested. An election may sometimes be seen as a sport, even as a blood-sport, but for those who are really politically hooked, it can outdo all the All Irelands, Six Nation’s championships, World Cups and Grand Nationals. Bring it on.
I think I may have mentioned in a previous article that as a young priest on the islands of Inis Oirr and Inis Meáin in the Aran Islands in the early seventies of the last century, I posted albs and altar cloths to be washed and ironed in Galway’s Magdalen Laundry without having any idea of who worked there and why. It would be interesting to see the order books and receipts from that laundry. I have little doubt that some people very prominent in Irish life sent their white shirts there to be washed and ironed between dances in Salthill’s Seapoint ballroom or the then Great Southern Hotel. Do I condemn them for that? No. They knew as little about it as I did, I’m sure, but perhaps they should mention their custom as a prelude to their condemnations of those who ran such laundries.
I am not in the business of criticising politicians when I make observations of this nature, just pointing out that we can all have double standards in such matters. I have the height of respect for every politician standing in the forthcoming local and European elections as well as those who stand for the Dáil. It takes courage and idealism for anyone to stand out from the crowd and put up with inevitable criticism, complaints or generalised slagging and condemnation. Many people enjoy the buzz of politics, and they would need to, given long nights, interminable meetings and the often slow pace of progress, particularly at times of cutbacks and money shortages. In my forty-three years as a priest I have been on many community councils and co-operatives, not to speak of school management boards, and have been impressed by the level of commitment and hard work, particularly of local politicians. I have seen them in action more often than their national or European counterparts.
Politics has been a bruising business for all of the political parties in the run-up to the European and local elections. Water-charges, the resignation of a Minister, the arrest of a Party leader who went voluntarily to Belfast, the on-off selection of a former Minister in Dun Laoghaire, low polling by the Labour Party in early opinion polls, not to speak of whatever may have happened since I wrote this. It must be a great time to be an Independent candidate. There will be winners and losers, surprises, swings and roundabouts. The counts will make for great radio and television as well as filling the pages of newspapers and all kind of online services for all of us who are interested. An election may sometimes be seen as a sport, even as a blood-sport, but for those who are really politically hooked, it can outdo all the All Irelands, Six Nation’s championships, World Cups and Grand Nationals. Bring it on.
Week ending 13th May 2014
As far as I remember, only once before have I ever heard the cuckoo before Easter, but then Easter is seldom as late as it was this year. It was the cuckoo that awakened me on Easter Sunday morning a couple of weeks back. Although not the cockerel of Irish tradition, with its cry: “Tá Mac na hÓige slán,” (The Virgin’s son is alive) I didn’t mind what sound called me the same morning. A couple of busy days were coming to an end and I was still alive. Not kicking, but happy. I previously had doubts about my aging body being able to take the pressure. This Easter in Carna/Cill Chiaráin was framed by two weddings, two funerals, three christenings and the visit of the Bishop of Plymouth, Mark Anthony Ó’Toole to the part of the country in which his mother and father were born. As I mentioned a couple of weeks back it was the first time in forty years I had Easter ceremonies in two different churches in the same year, but help was forthcoming in a big way from the Parish Pastoral council and an assortment of readers and helpers of various kinds for which I am very grateful.
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 uf 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 good to find 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. There are even those who claim that the word “jazz” evolved from the Irish language in New Orleans, with some of our emigrants shouting “Deas” (nice) during Gaelic and other music sessions.
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 earlier, but the weather itself was beautiful around Easter. I managed to set my few vegetables before the busy times began, so it is nice to see the onion sets sprouting on the week the remaining example of last year’s crop is being eaten. It is not that such produce is expensive in the shops, but eating what a person grows themselves has a particular appeal. Rhubarb is sprouting as fast as I am able to eat it. It lives up to its reputation as “purgóid na manach,” the monk’s purge, if not purgatory. One of the benefits of living by the ocean is the availability of many different kinds of fish sold from door to door as well as from a new mobile fish and chip stall.
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 not-so-merry-go-round of parish changes. After close on four years in Carna I feel that I have a certain immunity from change for a number of coming years, 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 in saying goodbyes to the people a person has known for years and the physical sorting and shifting of a houseful of books and baggage, once a decade should be enough for anyone.
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 uf 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 good to find 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. There are even those who claim that the word “jazz” evolved from the Irish language in New Orleans, with some of our emigrants shouting “Deas” (nice) during Gaelic and other music sessions.
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 earlier, but the weather itself was beautiful around Easter. I managed to set my few vegetables before the busy times began, so it is nice to see the onion sets sprouting on the week the remaining example of last year’s crop is being eaten. It is not that such produce is expensive in the shops, but eating what a person grows themselves has a particular appeal. Rhubarb is sprouting as fast as I am able to eat it. It lives up to its reputation as “purgóid na manach,” the monk’s purge, if not purgatory. One of the benefits of living by the ocean is the availability of many different kinds of fish sold from door to door as well as from a new mobile fish and chip stall.
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 not-so-merry-go-round of parish changes. After close on four years in Carna I feel that I have a certain immunity from change for a number of coming years, 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 in saying goodbyes to the people a person has known for years and the physical sorting and shifting of a houseful of books and baggage, once a decade should be enough for anyone.
Week ending 6th May 2014
As far as I remember, only once before have I ever heard the cuckoo before Easter, but then Easter is seldom as late as it was this year. It was the cuckoo that awakened me on Easter Sunday morning a couple of weeks back. Although not the cockerel of Irish tradition, with its cry: “Tá Mac na hÓige slán,” (The Virgin’s son is alive) I didn’t mind what sound called me the same morning. A couple of busy days were coming to an end and I was still alive. Not kicking, but happy. I previously had doubts about my aging body being able to take the pressure. This Easter in Carna/Cill Chiaráin was framed by two weddings, two funerals, three christenings and the visit of the Bishop of Plymouth, Mark Anthony Ó’Toole to the part of the country in which his mother and father were born. As I mentioned a couple of weeks back it was the first time in forty years I had Easter ceremonies in two different churches in the same year, but help was forthcoming in a big way from the Parish Pastoral council and an assortment of readers and helpers of various kinds for which I am very grateful.
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 uf 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 good to find 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. There are even those who claim that the word “jazz” evolved from the Irish language in New Orleans, with some of our emigrants shouting “Deas” (nice) during Gaelic and other music sessions.
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 earlier, but the weather itself was beautiful around Easter. I managed to set my few vegetables before the busy times began, so it is nice to see the onion sets sprouting on the week the remaining example of last year’s crop is being eaten. It is not that such produce is expensive in the shops, but eating what a person grows themselves has a particular appeal. Rhubarb is sprouting as fast as I am able to eat it. It lives up to its reputation as “purgóid na manach,” the monk’s purge, if not purgatory. One of the benefits of living by the ocean is the availability of many different kinds of fish sold from door to door as well as from a new mobile fish and chip stall.
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 not-so-merry-go-round of parish changes. After close on four years in Carna I feel that I have a certain immunity from change for a number of coming years, 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 in saying goodbyes to the people a person has known for years and the physical sorting and shifting of a houseful of books and baggage, once a decade should be enough for anyone.
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 uf 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 good to find 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. There are even those who claim that the word “jazz” evolved from the Irish language in New Orleans, with some of our emigrants shouting “Deas” (nice) during Gaelic and other music sessions.
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 earlier, but the weather itself was beautiful around Easter. I managed to set my few vegetables before the busy times began, so it is nice to see the onion sets sprouting on the week the remaining example of last year’s crop is being eaten. It is not that such produce is expensive in the shops, but eating what a person grows themselves has a particular appeal. Rhubarb is sprouting as fast as I am able to eat it. It lives up to its reputation as “purgóid na manach,” the monk’s purge, if not purgatory. One of the benefits of living by the ocean is the availability of many different kinds of fish sold from door to door as well as from a new mobile fish and chip stall.
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 not-so-merry-go-round of parish changes. After close on four years in Carna I feel that I have a certain immunity from change for a number of coming years, 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 in saying goodbyes to the people a person has known for years and the physical sorting and shifting of a houseful of books and baggage, once a decade should be enough for anyone.