On Sunday last, the feast of Christ the King, I had the honour of celebrating the annual Mass for deceased members of the Dublin Fire Brigade. It was a pleasure also to welcome Dublin’s Lord Mayor, Alison Gilliland, to our church for the occasion, but it was far from the first encounter between the mayor…
Notebook Probably the best-loved poem written in the Irish language begins with the words ‘Messe ocus Pangur Bán’. In Robin Flower’s translation, the first stanza reads: “I and Pangur Bán my cat,/‘Tis a like task we are at:/Hunting mice is his delight,/Hunting words I sit all night.” It was probably written at some point in…
Notebook We’re all familiar with trade unions, organisations like SIPTU and ASTI, founded by workers in a particular sector, and designed to protect the rights and welfare of such workers. They play a vital role in society, and in modern times Popes have consistently made major pronouncements in their favour, most elaborately in Pope St…
Notebook Irish people of all stripes are aware, at least vaguely, of the achievements of the learned monks of early Christian Ireland. Comparatively few details of the monastery schools and scholars on the island of Ireland at this period are known, however, and we know a good deal more about the Irish intellectuals who rose…
Picture the scene: sports day in a Catholic school in Grenoble, France, in February 1856, and a confident 15-year-old student named Henri Didon wins three gold medals. This was no ordinary sports day, though. It was ‘The Olympic Games of Rondeau’. This quadrennial school festival was inaugurated in 1832, six decades before the first modern…
Notebook It is 1947, and dusk is falling on the town of Drogheda. In the White Horse Inn on West St, a middle-aged writer is at work, penning a short essay. His name is Clive Staples Lewis. He had already made his name as a scholar of English literature, and as a lively proponent of…
Notebook A few years ago I found myself in a pub – remember them? – for a friend’s engagement party. There I got chatting to a young doctor. We got chatting about our studies, and he was astonished to find out that I had studied science as an undergraduate yet somehow ended up a priest.…
Notebook During the great season of Eastertide, basking in the light of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, the Church loves to read the Acts of the Apostles. One way to read Acts is to focus on the energy and enthusiasm of the apostles and their co-workers.…
Notebook During the Easter Octave we friars here in St Saviour’s in Dublin sang lauds each day in our little oratory. It’s a quiet spot, certainly quieter than our church, whose doors open to a busy street. One morning as we sang I noticed a bright, delicate voice combining with our own chant: a bird…
Notebook What hope is there for the young people of Ireland? Just over 40 years ago, when Pope St John Paul II addressed young Irish people in Galway, he was speaking to people supported and nourished by a Catholic culture: “You come from Catholic families; you go regularly and meet Christ in Holy Communion on…