We have a name! (Or, Habemus nomen as the cardinal who announces a new pope might put it). At last, our family of parishes has a name of its very own. Since last September, when I took up my new West Cork coastal appointment, our pastoral unit has had the somewhat unwieldy title of “The…

I asked you for your prayers when last I wrote on this page. And you prayed for me. The result was remarkable. Thank you. You may remember the reason for my request — my way of coping with an invitation to preach a Lenten mission in a parish on the southwest side of Chicago. I…

This Lent, I have taken on a project that is either incredibly brave or incredibly foolhardy. This undertaking of mine is also way above my pay grade, one of those proposals which seemed a good idea when it was a long way off, but now seems a lot less so. I have agreed to preach…

My late father, Denis Cotter, was a teacher all his life. As a national teacher, he taught in the classroom for over 40 years, the first 13 years in what was then the new Dublin suburb of Crumlin, and the remainder in a small two-teacher school in Ballinacarriga near Dunmanway in West Cork. He retired…

You may or not have seen the movie, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. It’s good in spots, though not every bit of it thrills me. One funny interlude comes when Reg, the leader of the anti-Roman guerilla faction, asks its members: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” The objective of the question was…

Notebook “To be or not to be”, cogitated Hamlet. Our dilemma as a ‘Family of Parishes’ was slightly different: “To grasp the nettle, or not to grasp the nettle?” The nettle in question would be understood by rural parishes everywhere and is summed up in six words: “Too many churches, too many Masses.” The simplest…

Life is full of surprises. If you had told me 30 years ago that I would be writing an article in praise of the Breviary, I would have thought you mad. Yet that’s just what I am doing today. Thirty years ago, I was very sporadic in my praying of the Divine Office. I was…

I was mobbed in the churchyard after Mass on the August bank holiday. We had just celebrated the Sacrament of the Sick during Mass, and there was just one question on everyone’s lips: “Would this be the last such Mass in Newcestown?” When I arrived in the parish in 2012, a lovely tradition was handed…

It was bound to happen. After over two years scrupulously taking every precaution to avoid infection, it caught me out: Covid visited me. And it took me over. It happened on a Saturday, the worst day for a priest in a one-priest parish. I woke with all the symptoms. An antigen test duly showed two…

Notebook I’m on the move. After a ten-year sojourn in Newcestown and Farnivane, I’ll be calling in the movers shortly. Objection is futile at this stage: how fortunate was I to spend ten years here. I am not the only Cork and Ross priest to be moved this year. Some think that almost all will have…