Mary Kenny
So, do many people celebrate St Patrick’s day in Northern Ireland?” I asked the cabbie on the drive into town from Belfast Airport. “It depends,” he answered carefully. “It depends on what sections of the community you’re talking about, so it does.”
It’s usually a mistake to get into a conversation with a taxi-driver on anything around politics, as he’ll usually start giving you a tutorial on the full range of his views. Not that his views mightn’t be well-informed, but there’s a danger of straying into argument. Though Belfast cabbies are prudent about what they say – at least at the outset.
Divisions
I rather lamely tried to convince him, then, that St Patrick’s Day should be ecumenical, since Patrick evangelised Ireland in 432, and that was well before divisions arose in Christianity. He looked at me through the rear-view mirror quizzically.
“Some people would be flying Tricolours, so they would,” he opined.
“Yes,” sez I, “that’s as maybe. But the shamrock is really supposed to be about the Holy Trinity and…” My voice trailed off. Maybe I was giving him a tutorial now.
Conversations turned to other matters (it’s a long stretch between Aldegrove and Botanic Avenue). Yet it’s true: although St Patrick’s Day is about Irish identity, Patrick himself has always been recognised by all Christians (and in New York, by the Jewish community which obliging produces green bagels for the day that’s in it).
And in recognition of the fact that Patrick is about all of Ireland – and by tradition he is buried in Downpatrick – Patrick’s Day is, nowadays, a public holiday in Northern Ireland as well as in the Republic of Ireland.
Regrettably, because of this wretched coronavisus, many celebrations have been cancelled, so it will be a day of more ‘social distance’ than usual.
And yet, I do notice, on these episodic trips to the North, that there seems to be a wider acceptance of an Irish identity than there was. This is most visible in areas like tourism and commerce.
Tourist spots
The popular tourist spots in Northern Ireland, like the Giant’s Causeway, the beautiful Antrim coast and the poignant Titanic experience on the Belfast docks, are marketed as being part of ‘Ireland’. Belfast souvenir shops now sell trinkets, and garments, branded ‘from Ireland’.
Yes, Unionist people still affirm their identity as being British – and that’s their tradition: but many seem to be more relaxed about being Irish as well.
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Swede dreams for Mary
Mary McAleese has announced that she’s written to Pope Francis saying she will leave the Catholic Church if she discovers that the Holy See “failed to act to protect members of L’Arche Community” (following the disclosures about allegations against the late Jean Vanier).
However, Fr Jim Stack, in Lismore, Co Waterford, wrote to the Irish Times saying that Mary “parted ways with the Catholic Church a long time ago. She disagrees with its fundamental teachings…she dislikes its structures. She dislikes its leader…she wants to converse on the matter directly with the Pope and she wants the whole process to be filtered through news media that are hostile to the Church.”
Advice
Fair comment. And yet, there is some precedent for commanding women to converse directly with the Pope (even if not filtered through a hostile news media). St Bridget of Sweden, wife, widow, mother of eight, and abbess (1303-1373) – she founded the Brigidine Order – spent much time in Rome “looking after the poor and sick and proffering very outspoken advice to the Popes about the serious ecclesiastical and political problems of the time” (Dictionary of Saints). Bridget had previously advised the Kings of Sweden, so she had form, and authority, too.
It was suggested by Pope Benedict XVI that Bridget should be the Patroness of Europe. But the EU didn’t want any references to Christianity in its constitution.
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Douglas Gageby was a legendary newspaper editor (died 2004) who came from a Northern Unionist Protestant background. Yet his father always wore the shamrock on St Patrick’s Day.
Someone in his office said to him: “Isn’t that a bit Fenian, Tommy?”
Tommy replied: “If it was b****dy well good enough for your king to present to his b****dy Irish Guards this morning, it’s b****dy well good enough for me!”