Ireland, O Ireland!

We face the world suffering and we bring to the table what we have.

And if our outlook is Hermetic, we feel that what we have is the gathered fruit from a journey, a destiny shot through with unfathomable depth and meaning.

I face the world, with my own experience of Ireland.

Ireland – a country radically transformed in the last two decades. Once one of the poorest in Europe, but suddenly transformed by a massive injection of EU capital and capitalist ‘success’. Once radically Catholic, now far more secular.

Yet the legacy of the past remains evident. Everywhere I go on this holy island, I hear the continual lament: ‘Money has ruined us. Money has ruined us’.

From neighbours, from newspapers, from churches, from taxi and bus drivers, I have never heard anything like this far-reaching collective lamentation.

The profound sense of loss cites the loss of community, most of all.

The irony is that Ireland still has by far the strongest community ethic of any country I have ever encountered. And I have lived in several. Simple goodwill and helpfulness here seem to me extraordinary. The social conscience, work for charity and so forth are markedly pronounced.

And yet I am told repeatedly – all of this is but a shadow of the community ethic that once existed in Ireland. 'Everyone just lives for themselves, these days' I am told.

By comparison with other countries, Ireland still remains a country of remarkable religious PRACTICE.

The *weekday* masses have striking levels of attendance, to say nothing of Sunday. Similarly in church after church, one can daily hear the prayer of the faithful: ‘Hail Mary full of grace’… And the chapels of Eucharistic Adoration are not empty. Ordinary people sit within them in silent reverence before the exposed Sacrament.

Again this is but a shadow of what was. I am told by the elders here of a life in their rural childhood, wherein every home, every evening the rosary was prayed. And everyone in the neighbouring area was welcome to come round and join in.

I am told of a world where the Angelus sounded at 12 and 6 every day and summoned people to prayer. And people really did *stop* what they were doing. (Though I am happy to note the Angelus stills sounds from my church and on Irish television at these times).

My destiny brought me here to see this …

Now one of the founding fathers of the modern Irish Republic was the staunchly Catholic Eamon DeValera. The political party he founded has dominated Irish politics from the beginning. He himself was elected leader repeatedly over *** decades*** in Ireland.

And what did Eamon DeValera stand for? Here is how he addressed the nation on Saint Patrick’s Day, 1943:

“The Ireland which we have dreamed of would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis of right living, of a people who were satisfied with frugal comfort and devoted their leisure to things of the spirit; a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry … whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. It would, in a word, be a home of a people living the life that God desires that men should live."

What I say in this webblog is fragmentary. Particularly at the moment. There are many nuances, paradoxes, shadows, and yes intolerable abuses in the Irish situation that cannot be captured here.

Still I invite you, my friends in more secular countries, to pause for a moment and reflect on your local politicians and what their electoral prospects would be – on the back of a call for frugality, 'things of the spirit', forums of serene wisdom and money 'only as a basis' for … the ‘life that God desires that men should live."

And again, DeValera was elected again and again and again ....

Clearly Ireland, until comparatively recently, breathed a different AIR to many other Western countries. And to different kinds of air I hope to soon return ...