Week ending 25th Nov 2014
I mentioned recently that my thirteenth Irish language novel, “Coolbáire” is soon to be published by Cló Iar-Chonnacht, publishers of books and music based in Indreabhán on the coast that runs west from Galway City. At the time I was not sure would it be out for the Christmas market, but I am assured that it will be, and I am having a final look over the proofs in the next day or two. Fans desperate to buy it can order it online from cic@iol.ie. Based in Barcelona it tells of a young Irishman who is the goalkeeper for one of the most famous and successful soccer clubs in the world. His family moved to Spain when he was very young as they were involved in drugs. The young man has himself avoided that part of life and kept himself clean of any such involvement. Some of his uncles are not so innocent and hope to get him to throw a match so that they can make a killing with bookmakers. On such thoughts are novels based so the rest is best left to the imagination.
A reissue of my first novel, published thirty one years ago was recently book of the month on an Irish language online site. It was launched at Oireachtas na Ceathrúin Rua by Aran Island born journalist, the late Breandán Ó hEithir. “Súil le Breith” was published by Séamus Ó Scolaí of Cló Chonamara, and it had been out of print for some years. Séamus’ son Darach reissued the book on his own publshing label, Breacán.ie. This particular book has taken on somewhat of a new life as it was published two years ago in Bulgarian with the help of Irish Literature Exchange, an organisation which translates books from minority languages such as Irish into mainstream European tongues. As I wrote in Irish in the first issue of the magazine of the Archdiocese of Tuam:“New Dawn,” I am delighted to think of the Bulgarian Fir Boilg sitting on their sandy beaches in the shadow of NAMA owned apartments, drinking their wine and reading my book.
Breandán Ó hEithir’s brother, Éanna was principal teacher in Inis Oirr National school when I went to that Aran Island in 1971. He died a couple of years later at the age of thirtyseven, a great tragedy for his family and for the island as he was deeply involved with the local co-operative which was working to bring electricity to the people at the time. I still remember a story he told me from his young days in Inis Mór. Like many youngsters he brought tourists by horse and trap from the pier in Cill Rónáin to see the great fort of Dún Aenghus perched on the edge of a cliff. One day an elderly priest booked him for the trip. Éanna minded the horse and trap while the priest visited the Dún. The old man was delighted when he returned, and explained his joy by mentioning: “In fact I am a bit of an Antiquarian.”
“Antiquarian” was a word that had a bad name on the island as the Royal Society of Antiquarians had held their Annual General Meeting in Dún Aenghus during the height of the Great Famine of the eighteen forties. The islands were not as badly hit by the famine as other areas because of the availability of fish, but “Antiquarians” still got the reputation on Inis Mór of being a bit touched in the head. When the priest declared himself “a bit of an Antiquarian” Éanna said he reassured him that he was alright. Some years later I was to use “Anthropological” rather than “Antiquarian” in a similar sense as the title of a novel: “Na hAintraieologicals.” (Cló Iar-Chonnacht 1994) On such gems that live on in the memory are books based.
A reissue of my first novel, published thirty one years ago was recently book of the month on an Irish language online site. It was launched at Oireachtas na Ceathrúin Rua by Aran Island born journalist, the late Breandán Ó hEithir. “Súil le Breith” was published by Séamus Ó Scolaí of Cló Chonamara, and it had been out of print for some years. Séamus’ son Darach reissued the book on his own publshing label, Breacán.ie. This particular book has taken on somewhat of a new life as it was published two years ago in Bulgarian with the help of Irish Literature Exchange, an organisation which translates books from minority languages such as Irish into mainstream European tongues. As I wrote in Irish in the first issue of the magazine of the Archdiocese of Tuam:“New Dawn,” I am delighted to think of the Bulgarian Fir Boilg sitting on their sandy beaches in the shadow of NAMA owned apartments, drinking their wine and reading my book.
Breandán Ó hEithir’s brother, Éanna was principal teacher in Inis Oirr National school when I went to that Aran Island in 1971. He died a couple of years later at the age of thirtyseven, a great tragedy for his family and for the island as he was deeply involved with the local co-operative which was working to bring electricity to the people at the time. I still remember a story he told me from his young days in Inis Mór. Like many youngsters he brought tourists by horse and trap from the pier in Cill Rónáin to see the great fort of Dún Aenghus perched on the edge of a cliff. One day an elderly priest booked him for the trip. Éanna minded the horse and trap while the priest visited the Dún. The old man was delighted when he returned, and explained his joy by mentioning: “In fact I am a bit of an Antiquarian.”
“Antiquarian” was a word that had a bad name on the island as the Royal Society of Antiquarians had held their Annual General Meeting in Dún Aenghus during the height of the Great Famine of the eighteen forties. The islands were not as badly hit by the famine as other areas because of the availability of fish, but “Antiquarians” still got the reputation on Inis Mór of being a bit touched in the head. When the priest declared himself “a bit of an Antiquarian” Éanna said he reassured him that he was alright. Some years later I was to use “Anthropological” rather than “Antiquarian” in a similar sense as the title of a novel: “Na hAintraieologicals.” (Cló Iar-Chonnacht 1994) On such gems that live on in the memory are books based.
Week ending 18th November 2014
I have become increasingly concerned at the amount of monsters that have been made available to the public in recent times. Almost every place I go I come across advertisements for a “Monster Raffle” or a “Monster Draw” or a “Monster Sale.” There are even “Monster Card Games,” which do not make it clear if it is the monsters who are playing the cards or if it is the winner who will have a monster going home with him or her. Who would want to win or to buy a monster anyway? Is it not enough to have people with funny masks coming to the door at Halloween? At least they are not real monsters. It is bad enough to see my hairy face in the mirror without having a monster I have won in a raffle I did not even enter looking over my shoulder. Seriously though it is good to see so much fundraising activity, mainly for charities in the lead-up to Christmas.
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of Christmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened too much in recent weeks. Many stores at least waited until Halloween was over before showering us with Christmas goods and music. It will take considerable discernment and discipline not to buy the things we don’t need, but the recession has taught us that we don’t need to have everything. “May you always have enough,” was an old wish or prayer that might serve us well in these harsh times. We don’t need everything as in celtic tiger times, but it sure helps to have enough. Things thankfully seem to be improving but there are water charges and other taxes to be faced in the New Year.
In recent years the depth of the recession has led me to welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas or any other feast or festival that is likely to put as much money as possible into pockets that need it. While many people like to observe their Sabbath, whether that is on Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to a person’s religion, I think the priority in recessionary times is for people to feed themselves and their families. Jesus himself got into trouble with the authorities of his own religion for breaking the Sabbath in order to do good, to heal people in his case. The flexibility that comes from observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law was one of the astute lessons taught us by the man the baby Jesus was to become in later life.
One of the great attributes Pope Francis has brought us in his eighteen months or so in office is the ability to relax about some of the issues that had almost become defining aspects of Catholicism, while putting the emphasis on the poor and the marginalised as the birth in Bethlehem did a couple of millennia ago. Jesus too preached and practised a fairly relaxed form of religion, as I understand it from the Gospels. It was not as if he was without principle, as shown by his willingness to die for what, or because of what he believed in. He did not make big issues of little things, make mountains from molehills. He knew what was and what was not important. Between now and Christmas it would be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Let our own little lullaby to baby Jesus be torecognise his later fairly relaxed attitude to law and to life.
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of Christmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened too much in recent weeks. Many stores at least waited until Halloween was over before showering us with Christmas goods and music. It will take considerable discernment and discipline not to buy the things we don’t need, but the recession has taught us that we don’t need to have everything. “May you always have enough,” was an old wish or prayer that might serve us well in these harsh times. We don’t need everything as in celtic tiger times, but it sure helps to have enough. Things thankfully seem to be improving but there are water charges and other taxes to be faced in the New Year.
In recent years the depth of the recession has led me to welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas or any other feast or festival that is likely to put as much money as possible into pockets that need it. While many people like to observe their Sabbath, whether that is on Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to a person’s religion, I think the priority in recessionary times is for people to feed themselves and their families. Jesus himself got into trouble with the authorities of his own religion for breaking the Sabbath in order to do good, to heal people in his case. The flexibility that comes from observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law was one of the astute lessons taught us by the man the baby Jesus was to become in later life.
One of the great attributes Pope Francis has brought us in his eighteen months or so in office is the ability to relax about some of the issues that had almost become defining aspects of Catholicism, while putting the emphasis on the poor and the marginalised as the birth in Bethlehem did a couple of millennia ago. Jesus too preached and practised a fairly relaxed form of religion, as I understand it from the Gospels. It was not as if he was without principle, as shown by his willingness to die for what, or because of what he believed in. He did not make big issues of little things, make mountains from molehills. He knew what was and what was not important. Between now and Christmas it would be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Let our own little lullaby to baby Jesus be torecognise his later fairly relaxed attitude to law and to life.
Week ending 11th November 2014
Forty-three years ago this week I was introduced, fairly unceremoniously, to the Atlantic Ocean. I sailed out for the first time on the Naomh Éanna as curate on the Aran Islands of Inis Oirr and Inis Meáin. It was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at the time as I was stagnating as Prefect of Studies in Saint Jarlath’s College, Tuam. I felt that this is not what I had been ordained for, and expressed such sentiments in ‘The Western People’ in an article entitled – ‘The Dog Collar, From the Inside.’ I wrote: “Supervising the rat-race from the inside of a dog-collar certainly wasn’t my idea of the priesthood, but here I am, a three month old baby priest, providing a police service for those parents who can afford to send their children to secondary boarding school.”
Fairly strong stuff from a young fellow, and I found myself on board what the islanders referred to as ‘An Steamer’ heading for my new posting the following Wednesday. Legend has it that then Bishop of Galway, Westport man, Dr Michael Browne quipped: “Happy the Bishop who has islands in his diocese.” I didn’t care. There was no going back so I faced the wintry seabreeze with the idealism and foolishness of relative youth. It was a life-changing experience, a move from mainland to island life, from English to Irish language, from driving from one place to another on the mainland, to the sometimes hair-raising experience of crossing a couple of miles of dangerous sea by currach between Sunday Masses.
There was an element of culture shock about the move. I found it difficult to believe that such a place existed about sixty miles from where I was born and reared. Many of the island women wore coloured shawls and large red petticoats. Men wore homespun trousers and waistcoats as well as pampooties, a kind of slipper/sandal made from rawhide, with the animal hair still attached. It was not unusual to see a man wade into seawater above his knees while launching a currach, without a seeming care in the world about pneumonia, or arthritis in later years. I was used to limestone walls around fields at home, but on the islands many of the walls were taller as myself, with some enclosed fields not much larger than a cottage kitchen.
The most difficult aspect of the change was the language. Currachs and boats were easily adapted to by comparison. Saying Mass was relatively easy as I had the book in front of me and enough school Irish to get on with it, whatever about the pronunciation. Conversation, communication was the biggest problem, as everyone seemed to speak so fast. If the words were written down I would probably have recognised them, but were just a blur when put together. People on the islands were patient and said they didn’t really expect a new priest to have Irish. They just had to train us, one after the other.. They assured me that they themselves often found English just as difficult when they visited Galway.
My efforts at pidgin Irish were often returned to me in the correct order, so it was up to me to pick it up and try and get it right. The slow slog of trying to get one word or sentence right every day paid off eventually. Apart from those who are linguistic wizards it is surely the best way to try and learn a language. After more than forty years I would still not hold a candle to a native Irish speaker. Despite that I am pleased that my thirteenth Irish language novel (“Coolbáire,” being prepared for publication by Cló Iar Chonnacht – cic@iol.ie), most of them inspired by fortythree years on Gaeltacht islands and mainland.
Fairly strong stuff from a young fellow, and I found myself on board what the islanders referred to as ‘An Steamer’ heading for my new posting the following Wednesday. Legend has it that then Bishop of Galway, Westport man, Dr Michael Browne quipped: “Happy the Bishop who has islands in his diocese.” I didn’t care. There was no going back so I faced the wintry seabreeze with the idealism and foolishness of relative youth. It was a life-changing experience, a move from mainland to island life, from English to Irish language, from driving from one place to another on the mainland, to the sometimes hair-raising experience of crossing a couple of miles of dangerous sea by currach between Sunday Masses.
There was an element of culture shock about the move. I found it difficult to believe that such a place existed about sixty miles from where I was born and reared. Many of the island women wore coloured shawls and large red petticoats. Men wore homespun trousers and waistcoats as well as pampooties, a kind of slipper/sandal made from rawhide, with the animal hair still attached. It was not unusual to see a man wade into seawater above his knees while launching a currach, without a seeming care in the world about pneumonia, or arthritis in later years. I was used to limestone walls around fields at home, but on the islands many of the walls were taller as myself, with some enclosed fields not much larger than a cottage kitchen.
The most difficult aspect of the change was the language. Currachs and boats were easily adapted to by comparison. Saying Mass was relatively easy as I had the book in front of me and enough school Irish to get on with it, whatever about the pronunciation. Conversation, communication was the biggest problem, as everyone seemed to speak so fast. If the words were written down I would probably have recognised them, but were just a blur when put together. People on the islands were patient and said they didn’t really expect a new priest to have Irish. They just had to train us, one after the other.. They assured me that they themselves often found English just as difficult when they visited Galway.
My efforts at pidgin Irish were often returned to me in the correct order, so it was up to me to pick it up and try and get it right. The slow slog of trying to get one word or sentence right every day paid off eventually. Apart from those who are linguistic wizards it is surely the best way to try and learn a language. After more than forty years I would still not hold a candle to a native Irish speaker. Despite that I am pleased that my thirteenth Irish language novel (“Coolbáire,” being prepared for publication by Cló Iar Chonnacht – cic@iol.ie), most of them inspired by fortythree years on Gaeltacht islands and mainland.
Week ending 4th November 2014
On the first day of this month I was saying to myself and to anyone who was listening to my sermon: “Today is my day, your day, everybody’s day, All Saints Day, the first of November, Lá Samhna. Most people would be too shy, too humble, too honest to include themselves among the saints, but in the early church all followers of Jesus were referred to as ‘the saints’ in the ‘Acts Of The Apostles.’ The fact is, as far as I can see it, that most people of any religion or none do very little wrong, very little that could be described as sinful, and they can be easily referred to as saints. Most would blush at the thought, but this is the kind of ordinary sainthood celebrated and commemorated on All Saint’s Day.
It is a day set aside for the people who will never make the bigtime, never be canonised or considered as official saints, but they are saints nonetheless, all the more saintly in many cases because they have gone unnoticed, earned their sainthood in the ordinary and everyday, the giving of themselves for others that so many people do for their families and those living with them or near them. We used to think that the statement thet there is no greater love than to lay down your life for others referrred to martyrdom or war, when it is in fact far more applicable to daily living.
I was thinking recently of a story I heard many years ago in the Aran Islands about a young priest who was sent there, like most of us, with very little Irish. He was hearing confession at one side of a church in Inis Mór on his first Saturday there, while the Parish Priest was in the box opposite. When they were finished the young curate referred to the Irish word for cursing – eascaine, which he had heard in the box for the first time: “I don’t know what this eascaine is,” he told the Parish Priest, “but there are an awful lot of them at it.”
They were innocent times when so many people felt the need to invent ‘sins’ to have something to tell in confession, because in fact most of them had no sin on them at all. About thirty years ago when confession was being rebranded as ‘The Sacrament of Reconciliation’ I remember the day that Archbishop Joseph Cunnane brought Monsignor Gerard Mitchell, a former Professor and President of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth around to Diocesan Priest’s Conferences to speak on the subject in Clifden. Monsignor Mitchell was a theologian who was down to earth and told things as he saw them.
There was a sharp intake of breath from priests the age I am now when the Monsignor mentioned that he saw no point in people running to confession when they had nothing to confess. One senior clergyman even went so far as to say: “You don’t really mean that, Monsignor.” He did. Catholics worldwide saw the sense in that too, and drifted away from frequent confession. There was nothing to tell. Most were and in fact are saints in the sense that All Saint’s Day is being celebrated. Many countries have memorials to ‘The Unknown Soldier” The church has its memorial day in November: “To The Unknown Saints.” It is worth celebrating.
It is a day set aside for the people who will never make the bigtime, never be canonised or considered as official saints, but they are saints nonetheless, all the more saintly in many cases because they have gone unnoticed, earned their sainthood in the ordinary and everyday, the giving of themselves for others that so many people do for their families and those living with them or near them. We used to think that the statement thet there is no greater love than to lay down your life for others referrred to martyrdom or war, when it is in fact far more applicable to daily living.
I was thinking recently of a story I heard many years ago in the Aran Islands about a young priest who was sent there, like most of us, with very little Irish. He was hearing confession at one side of a church in Inis Mór on his first Saturday there, while the Parish Priest was in the box opposite. When they were finished the young curate referred to the Irish word for cursing – eascaine, which he had heard in the box for the first time: “I don’t know what this eascaine is,” he told the Parish Priest, “but there are an awful lot of them at it.”
They were innocent times when so many people felt the need to invent ‘sins’ to have something to tell in confession, because in fact most of them had no sin on them at all. About thirty years ago when confession was being rebranded as ‘The Sacrament of Reconciliation’ I remember the day that Archbishop Joseph Cunnane brought Monsignor Gerard Mitchell, a former Professor and President of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth around to Diocesan Priest’s Conferences to speak on the subject in Clifden. Monsignor Mitchell was a theologian who was down to earth and told things as he saw them.
There was a sharp intake of breath from priests the age I am now when the Monsignor mentioned that he saw no point in people running to confession when they had nothing to confess. One senior clergyman even went so far as to say: “You don’t really mean that, Monsignor.” He did. Catholics worldwide saw the sense in that too, and drifted away from frequent confession. There was nothing to tell. Most were and in fact are saints in the sense that All Saint’s Day is being celebrated. Many countries have memorials to ‘The Unknown Soldier” The church has its memorial day in November: “To The Unknown Saints.” It is worth celebrating.
