For those who have gone before

Today being the feast of All Souls, or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, as my missal has it, it's once again time to revisit my annual post where I remember those gone before me. This is a special day in the Church calendar dedicated to trying to help those we've loved -- and even those we've conspicuously failed to love, and so many who we've never known -- to make their way towards God and towards becoming who they were truly created to be.

The word 'Purgatory' may not appear in the Bible, but that doesn’t mean the doctrine isn’t there, readily drawn out from references to prayers that help the dead, to how nothing imperfect can enter heaven and a fire that purifies us after death, and to a prison where souls go till their debts are paid. Those are the lessons the early Christians drew from these lessons, and from their Jewish forebears. Just as it’s for the Blessed in Heaven to pray for us, so it is for us, then, to visit those souls in prison but guaranteed to share in the Blessed Vision, praying for those destined for heaven that they may more quickly reach the top of Dante’s mountain of hope. Having done the Camino de Santiago, and even the three-day pilgrimage at St Patrick's Purgatory at Lough Derg, I have a better sense these days than I once did of how we're all obliged to pull together to help each other to the finishing line. And with all the reading I've done over the past few years I've a much better sense now than I ever did of how the medieval Irish shaped how the Church thought about this reality: in many ways ours was a penitential and purgatorial church, looking from the first towards the Last Judgement.

With that in mind, then, I have a lot of people to pray for today, just as I hope lots of people, here or up above, are praying for me, since we all need each other's help at one time or another. Many of these, I'm sure, don't need any prayers at all, but it certainly can't hurt, and if anyone here needs any help at all, I do hope my prayers will give that, in whatever meagre way they can.

Like last year, I should say, this has been a tough one, with many losses for me and for those I care about.

Gabriel Doherty of UCC died in early November last year. I'd first encountered Gabriel in the aftermath of the special 1916 issue of the Irish Catholic I'd put together, when he'd written to the paper praising it and I'd contacted him to ask if we could use his comments to promote a revision of that issue as a book. In his response he said something that made my jaw drop: 'As a member of the advisory group on the decade of centenaries I have been paying minute attention to pretty much everything that has appeared (in books, newspapers, on tv, radio, internet, via talks, conferences etc.) on the Rising (and the associated events) for the last 4 years, and amongst all the thousands of articles and dozens of supplements that have so far appeared, I have no hesitation in saying that the supplement with the Irish Catholic was not alone the best, but the most important, because it helped to fill a huge gap in the knowledge within the church about what happened in those times, as much as about what it did.' Cue his writing an introduction for the subsequent book in which he said 'this volume represents a huge stride forward in the public understanding of the Rising, of the Church, and of modern Irish history more generally, and those involved deserve to be applauded for their initiative'. I finally got to meet him at the book launch in the Capuchin hall, and met him at several subsequent consequences, always being charmed by him, though I think I'd just scratched the surface of how kind, how thoughtful, how energetic, how supportive, and how interesting he was; I couldn't make it to Cork for the funeral, but joining it remotely online I really got a sense of how profoundly special a person he had been. I had hoped to talk to him about doing a book together, and though we'll not manage that, the idea is still with me. Maybe someday. It would be a tribute he'd like, I'm sure.

Teresa Coakley died a few weeks later. The mother of childhood friends, she'd been a wonderful host time and again through those primary years, and as the decades have passed she was always someone I was delighted to meet when visiting Palmerstown.

Michael Dwyer was someone I met far too rarely -- we first got to know each other online, then met in the Davenport Hotel after some event or other back in 2011 or so. He was a fun and unusual thinker, and a great host when he had me down to Gorey to give a talk at a summer school there some years ago. He was also the dearest friend of another friend of mine, and somebody I think I'd have enjoyed knowing rather better and disagreeing with as often as I'd have shared his views.

Gordon Fitchett, my friend Polly's birth-father, was the last death of that rough November; I never knew Gordon, and Polly got to know him late, but I'm glad for her sake that she got to know him when she did, and has written so eloquently of him elsewhere.

Carine O’Grady, secretary of UCD's Classics Department from my first and longest stint there, died this January. She was a wonderful, kind, sharp, elegant lady, peerlessly efficient and host of the most marvellous garden parties. Back in the day, during a particularly acrimonious society election, Carine was the only member of staff to vote -- others felt they should exclude themselves, but Carine took the view that never in her life had she shirked an opportunity to vote and this would be no exception. I think she voted for me. If she did, hers might have been the single vote that carried me over the line.

My uncle Noel's sister Dorothy Sheridan died the day after Carine. I never met her, but that whole Spaine family has always seemed wonderful in all its expressions, and my dad speaks of having spent much of his happy teenage years in that home.

Having finally worked out how I could take time off and visit her at long last in Aberystwyth, I texted Eleanor Morris in late January only to learn she had died four days earlier, little more than a year after her beloved William. Eleanor was so good to me in my Wilmslow days, the late Kate Gregg and her I think finding me a bit lost and battered and in need of some kind of maternal support; I must have had coffee with her after Mass hundreds of times, and been round to the house for dinner at least a dozen times too. I'm so sorry I didn't manage to visit her in Wales after she and William moved, but am at least glad I travelled over for the funeral and helped too with the organising of the readings, as she'd asked me to do that when in touch early last year. I learned a huge amount about her and laughed very hard during and after the funeral, but really: it's so hard to think of her gone.

David McArdle, another neighbour from my childhood, died in early February. David was the middle one of three brothers who lived across the road from me, and in truth the one I knew least well, but he's always been part of my mental landscape and I'm sure is dearly missed by his mum and brothers.

My friend Neasa's dad Willie Woods died at the end of the month; I'd got to know them both through working at the pub, Neasa as a co-worker and Willie as a customer. He always seemed a gentle, funny, low-key Dub of a classic type I've always liked, and I'm deeply sorry for the loss to Neasa.

My friend Kevin's godmother Maria Rynn died in early March; I never knew her, but Kevin's a special person and anybody who's helped him on his path must have been a truly special person.

Mary Wright, the mother of a childhood friend, died later that month. It had been a long time since I'd seen her, but she'd been a really lovely lady.

Pat McLoughlin, another neighbour from my childhood, died in April. He'd always been a friendly face in the neighborhood and somebody who'd made a massive contribution locally as one of the founders of our credit union. I'm afraid too often I talk of him in connection with his stuntman brother, but Pat was a genuinely important figure where I grew up.

May, then, saw my friend Alan's dad Colum McGaughey dying. Alan, with whom I'd travelled around Europe almost thirty years ago and in the last couple of years visited New York and Madrid, is one of my oldest friends, and so I'd known Colum since I was at least in my early teens. He's been ill a while, but still, he was no age really.

Vic Connerty, about whom I've written at length here, died while I was away on holiday in Italy. He'd have approved of at least my being there when I got the news. He was one of the most extraordinary people I've ever known, and the world is so much better for having him in it. I'm glad I was able to get to the funeral, the day after I got back from holidays, and to be there in the church with Vic's family and friends and so many former students, bursting with laughter at times, unable to hold back tears as mementoes of him were brought up, including that briefcase we'd all seen so many times, and heading over to the pub and eventually a friends' house afterwards to keep him in our minds. Such was the funeral we gave Vic, teacher of multitudes.

Bro Kevin Crowley, one of the greatest Irishmen of my lifetime, died in early July. There's nothing I can say of him that surely hasn't been said a million times, but he was always a joy to meet and interview and I still laugh to think of his reaction when I told him of how a certain Irish politician had said the Church should be 'put in the dustbin'. 'I'd put her in the dustbin!'

My friend Zelie's mum Philomena McGrath died a few days later. I'd never met her, though for years -- not least through Covid -- I'd paid careful attention to all Zelie's updates on her and the dedication she gave her. Facebook may be terrible nowadays, but sometimes it's worthwhile and watching that constant testimony of love and care has been truly edifying.

Having spent much of the aftermath of Vic's funeral with my friend Louise in the pub with Bronwyn, and then over dinner with her family at home it was a shock just a few weeks later in late June to learn that her dad Alan Aitchison had died. Alan and his wife Patricia had taken me in and put me up for a while when I had ended up effectively homeless at one point a decade or so ago, and so they have long been people who've meant the world to me. A crisp, wry, funny, practical, loving person, he was clearly a fabulous father and a devoted husband. That he was a spectacular grandfather was all too clear too, and his being a remarkable chef was something I was honoured to discover for myself! He wasn't even seventy and had seemed as healthy as could be. Sometimes it feels as though people are robbed out of our lives.

My dad's friend Frank Coffey died this August. Dad had been to see him in hospital one day, and the following day, uneasy about a message from Frank, had wrapped up our lunch efficiently to make his way out to see him again; it's as well he did, as Frank died the next day. My dad's lost too many people he cares about these past few years.

September, then, saw my wife's uncle Mark Winker die back home in Escanaba, Michigan. My mother-in-law's brother, I'd met Mark maybe half a dozen times and always liked him immensely. He had an infectious laugh, a deep love for his grandchildren, an improbable fondness for lego, and a joy in cars that I didn't understand but liked basking in. And how could you not like somebody who within hours of meeting you would bring you over to his trailer so he could produce his various guns and set you up shooting a target in his mother's back yard. "Tell them we're shooting!" he hollered to his brother-in-law Dale who was sauntering by, drink in hand. "They'll know," said Dale. Mark's family are all such warm and gentle people, and I really feel for them this autumn. Again, people go too soon.

Finally, then, another of the most impressive Irishmen of my lifetime passed in late September; there's nothing I can add to the obituaries and such for Martin Mansergh, save to say that I always enjoyed dealing with him in connection with the paper, chatting with him about Brexit and the role of the EU in bringing peace to the North was fascinating, and I'm glad he was able to write a piece for our 1916 issue and my book. I really do wish we'd all been graced with an account of the Peace Process and the Good Friday Agreement from his perspective. That would have been one more gift to the country.

And so, to turn to those who would have been in mind this day last year too...

I pray for my mum, Veronica Daly, who we lost at Christmas 2020 and laid to rest in Dublin and Liverpool over the next two years, her ashes divided between the city where her family raised her and the city where she raised her family. I pray too today for Nana and Grandad, all the Dodds, Auntie Maureen, Valerie McKenna, my cousins Philip and Lyn, David, Susan, and Lily, and my dad's cousin Cecil Doyle; for Auntie Brenda and Uncle Tommy, Auntie Kathleen, Auntie Eileen, Great Auntie Mary, my cousins Janet and Michael, and my cousins Richard and Ian; for my uncle John; for Mam's parents, for aunt Doreen and for Monica. I pray too for Joan's husband Gerry Kavanagh, and for Edwin Bergquist and Terry Winker, both of whom I've lost from the wonderful family into which I've been blessed to marry. 

I pray for Mary and Paddy Hoare, for Mr Harwood, for Mr and Mrs McCourt, for Mrs Carrigan and for Michael Carrigan, for Mr Gahan, for Mr and Mrs Reeves, for John Ryan, Mick Doyle, Mr Lyons, Jim Freeman, Mrs Gibson, Mr and Mrs and Bernie Flanagan, Mrs Mannelly, Mr Doyle, Elizabeth Kenny, Matt and Clare O’Reilly, and Charlie and Breda Gunning.

I pray for Therese Delaney, and her aunt and uncle Sr Margaret Murtagh and Vincent Murtagh; for Johnny McGrath, Delores Spittal, Dick Molumby, Frank Beggan, Dessie Breen, Sean Forde, and Mollie O'Callaghan, and all those I know from Palmerstown Credit Union; for Gerry Hendricken, Frank Coakley, Damien Brunton, and Paddy and Margaret Trodden; for Joe and Nora Hanrahan, Matt Garrigan, Dave Leavy, Frank and Mrs Towey, Jack Farrelly, Shay Lord, Jim Skerritt, David Fitzgerald, Billy Callaghan, Jimmy Owens, Gary Kennedy, Liam Coffey, Gerry Murray, Paul's uncle Francis Kennedy and Neasa's aunt Marie Doyle, all known to me from the Silver Granite; for Mary Ward; for Tom Corr, Sean Mitchell, Eamon Woulfe, Liam Glynn, Eddie Martin, Padraic Naughton, and Bro. John Hyland from Moyle Park.

I pray for so many of my peers, taken far too soon, and for those with whom I have worked and walked: Gavan Nugent, Padraic Ryan, Anthony Desmond, Sean Kenny and his sister Emma, Paul Brown, Claire Edmonds, Conn Murphy, Marie Plisnier, Agueda Pons, Michelle Cosgrave and her father Ollie, Ultan Sinclair, Susan Dunne and her parents Paschal and Angela, Renate Kurzmann, Nina-Jayne Birley, Paul Mullally, and Seb Carney; for Kathleen Griffin and Niamh Moloney from Catholic Voices; for Maria Lezama from Cork L'Arche; for Julie Yipp and Kevin Hunneybell from my Camino, for Francis McKenzie from my visit to Peru; for Declan Moroney and Paul MacKay from the Irish Catholic, and Mark Howard from Veritas.

I pray for Val Grant, Alex Walker, Theresa MacDonagh, Gerard McCarthy, Sheila Griffith, Brian Pullan whose death I missed when it happened in 2022, and Alan Gilbert from the University of Manchester; and for John, Kathleen Bibby, Mary McFaul, John and Agnes Ainsworth, Kate Gregg, William Morris, and Fr Anthony Cogliolo, all from Wilmslow.

I pray for Sr Mary David Totah; for Fr Con Curley, Fr Gerard Byrne, and Fr Flo Lynch; for Fr David Lumsden and Fr Martin Ryan; for Fr Tom Heneghan; for Fr Simon Roche OP, Fr Martin McCarthy OP, Fr Dermot Brennan OP, Fr Bob Talty OP, and Fr Denis Keating OP; for Sr Margarita Schwind OP; and for Bishop Noel Treanor.

I pray for Jenny Daly, and Sr Agnes, and Helen, and all the other ladies from Mam's nursing home.

I pray for Bill Kinsella from Boora; for Marion Doyle from Kilcormac; for Fritz Schult from Pollatomish; for Steve's wife Ruth Southall; for Sarah's grandad Alan Martindale; for Laura's grandad Tony Adams; for Jason's mum Marlene Crowley and Sophie's dad Johnny von Pfluegl; for Christopher's mum Mary Dawson; for Michael's mother Ann Kelly; for Colum's dad Joe Keating, for Eamon's parents Packie and Ella McGarty, for John's dad Gerry Duffy, for Aidan's father Colin Higgins, for the fathers of Daron Higgins, Lucy Corcoran, Dara Gantley, Bláithín Ni Giolla Rua, Martin Brady, and Bridget Martin, and the parents of Claire O'Brien; for Ned's mum Maura Hughes; for Jean's dad Kevin Callaghan; for Breda Polly and Tom Crotty; for Rory's mum Anne Fitzgerald; for Dan's wife Naima Jackson; for Mike's sister Katie Lewis; for Bob's dad Brian McCabe; for Dawn Foster, Liam Cahill, and Greg Hillis who I knew just through their writing and their warmth and wisdom over the internet; for Polly and Dan’s friends Will Scott and Dominic Crisp; for George Kiely, who stood with me when I needed true support; and for John Brierley, who helped guide me on Spanish and other paths.

I pray for the souls of all those dear to those I love, for the souls of all those dear to me, and for the souls of all those whose names and faces I have forgotten. 

I pray too for the families of all those I remember, and of those who, like Francis Benedict Pyles, Margaret Mary Hill, and Meadbh Versuri Gorman, are not themselves in need of any prayers and went to God assured of their rest in his blessed vision.

May the Lord God almighty have mercy on their souls, and may his perpetual light shine upon them; may they rest in peace.

Amen.

O Captain! Our Captain!

There’s a line in the Aeneid where a heartbroken Aeneas steels himself to tell his shipwrecked compatriots that a time will come when they will look back with fondness on their misfortunes. 

'My friends, this is not the first trouble we have known,’ he says in the West translation I read back in UCD thirty years ago. ‘We have suffered worse before, and this too will pass. God will see to it. You have been to Scylla's cave and heard the mad dogs howling in the depths of it. You have even survived rocks thrown by the Cyclops. So summon up your courage once again. This is no time for gloom or fear. The day will come, perhaps, when it will give you pleasure to remember even this. Whatever chance may bring, however many hardships we suffer, we are making for Latium, where the Fates show us our place of rest. There it is the will of God that the kingdom of Troy shall rise again. Your task is to endure and save yourselves for better days.'

I’ve been thinking of this a lot since Saturday, when I got the shocking news that Vic Connerty had died. These few days have been ones where deep sorrow has mingled with gratitude, and the thought that I’ve been so lucky to have been taught and guided by Vic, and to have known him for so long as a friend.

It’s strange to think back to to those magnificent lectures in UCD where Vic could cast his spell over a packed Theatre L, the 450 or so students who were meant to be there bolstered by cohorts who’d come over from the faculties of Engineering, Science, and Architecture to hear Vic tell us about the Gracchi, of Marius and his seven consulships, of Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, and the constant fatal relationship of land and the army. Despite how many wonderful lecturers there were in the Arts faculty at that time - I had a lot of great ones across Greek and Roman Civilization, History, and one year of English - it’s hardly surprising that when thousands of UCD alumni were polled a dozen or so years back and asked who their favourite lecturer had been, Vic was the winner for the 1990s.

Starting second year I met my tutor from first year, the lovely Jane McEntaggart, who said Mr Connerty wanted to meet me, so when I spotted him in a stairway a few days later I nervously approached him. We were talking in no time at all about my working in the pub in Palmerstown, about the comics convention I’d been at in London because I’d wanted back then to be a comic artist, and about how he and my mum had both moved here from Liverpool within a couple of years. Within a a week or so the tutorial lists were up and I was thrilled to see that I was in his group, along with Valerie who I’d known from the previous year, Claire who’s still a dear friend to this day, Joanne, Paula, Johanna, Gerry, Jacqui, and Suzanne. And so began a year of such wonderful memories, anecdotes, lessons, and ideas. Too many to share, though I’ll never forget in particular how Vic told us of the last words attributed to the emperor Vespasian, distracted from the canonical “I think I’m becoming a God” by the sight of a rainbow apparently ending in the bushes of Belfield.

Small wonder, then, that I did his third-year course on the decade of the Triumvirate, immersed in Caesar, Cicero, Plutarch, and others, letting the ancients speak for themselves, even if we viewed them at times with sceptical eyes. And even now I can’t but think of those classes without hearing Vic’s warmly growling voice with that unforgettable cadence, quoting Cicero’s “to listen to him you’d think he lived in Plato’s Republic, and not in the sink of Romulus.”

And so the following year I started my Master’s and became a tutor under Vic’s mentorship, making a host of friendships I still am so lucky to have, even if we’ve lost a few since: poor Renate passed on a couple of years ago, and Carine died just a few months back. Vic would be my boss whether tutoring or invigilating, my supervisor when Andrew Erskine was away in Munich, and most importantly my friend through the decades of his retirement: I was so glad to be able to build my first flexi-day off from my current job around one of our regular coffee meetings at Dunne and Crescenzi, there to talk of life and academia and the very different fortunes of our respective Merseyside football clubs. I’d never have imagined it would be our last coffee meeting, or that seeing him at UCD’s Classical Society Inaugural a couple of months back would be our last meeting of any sort.

In truth, countless people could tell stories like mine: when one of my friends shared the news of his death on Facebook she began with the words “O Captain! My Captain!” I’d had those words - whether thought of as Walt Whitman’s, or Robin Williams’s, or Ethan Hawke’s - in my head ever since Tom had sent me the news, and I’m sure there are so many others who could say the same.

I want to say that the world is darker today, but Vic’s was a fire that lit thousands of candles. One of my friends described him the other day as a champion of the ancient world who exemplified how to be a person in the modern world, and this is surely right: his warmth, his wisdom, his curiosity, and his deep care for people are things that will surely stay with me and so many others as long as we live. May he rest in peace.

For those who have gone before...

Today being the feast of All Souls, or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, as my missal has it, it's time to revisit my annual post where I remember those gone before me. It's a special day in the Church calendar dedicated to trying to help those we've loved, and even those we've conspicuously failed to love, and so many who we've never known, to make their way towards God and towards becoming who they were truly created to be.

The word 'Purgatory' may not appear in the Bible, but that doesn’t mean the doctrine isn’t there, readily drawn out from references to prayers that help the dead, to how nothing imperfect can enter heaven and a fire that purifies us after death, and to a prison where souls go till their debts are paid. Those are the lessons the early Christians drew from these lessons, and from their Jewish forebears. Just as it’s for the Blessed in Heaven to pray for us, so it is for us, then, to visit those souls in prison but guaranteed to share in the Blessed Vision, praying for those destined for heaven that they may more quickly reach the top of Dante’s mountain of hope. Having done the Camino de Santiago, and even the three-day pilgrimage at St Patrick's Purgatory at Lough Derg, I have a better sense these days than I once did of how we're all in this together, obliged to pull together to help each other to the finishing line. And with all the reading I've done over the past few years I've a much better sense now than I ever did of how the medieval Irish shaped how the Church thought about this reality: in many ways ours was a penitential and purgatorial church, looking from the first towards the Last Judgement.

With that in mind, then, I have a lot of people to pray for today, just as I hope lots of people, here or up above, are praying for me, since we all need each other's help at one time or another. Many of these, I'm sure, don't need any prayers at all, but it certainly can't hurt, and if anyone here needs any help at all, I do hope my prayers will give that, in whatever meagre way they can.

This last year, I should say, has been a hard one, with many losses, for me and for those I care about.

Paul Mullally, a friend from my days in primary and secondary school, died in early December last year; he was a deeply kind and supportive person, who I'd known since he'd eagerly shared his Star Wars fan magazines with me as a small child, and who would go on in our secondary days to tell me the most remarkable Palmerstown news of my life

William Morris, who I'd known and who'd hosted me for dinner and driven me home many times in my Wilmslow days, passed on a few days later. A funny, wry, wonderfully straightforward man, I'm very glad I'd known him through his wife Eleanor.

My mum's younger sister, Eileen Hawksey, followed a few days later. Auntie Eileen had always been someone I'd loved deeply as a child, and who I'd often been compared to. I'm glad I got to know her as an adult when I lived in Manchester and could visit family in Liverpool, though I'm still heartbroken I missed her funeral, having reached the airport gate just moments after it had closed, with my plane on the runway for half an hour after I got there.

Ella McGarty, my friend Eamonn's mum, died in March; she was a sweet, elegant, gentle person, and one who I'm very glad to have known.

Seb Carney followed in April, and to this day I keep thinking of the picture of him and Paul Brown and me from Sarah's 21st, and shake my head that neither of the lads are with us now. 

Of all the deaths this last year, I'm not sure any have hit me more than that of Therese Delaney, who died in June, on the birthday of my sister who had been Therese's best friend when they were children. I'd basically grown up in the Delaney house, and in a way always thought of Therese as my sister. I think too that in a way she thought of me as an extra brother, but as I realised at her funeral, that's how so many felt around her. What an extraordinary gift to have had, to make so many feel she was their sister, to make so many feel like her siblings. The world feels so much poorer without her. 

Paul MacKay died a few days later. I hadn't known Paul well, in his time as director of the Irish Catholic, but he was always good company, and I suspect too that insofar as the paper was well run at all it was down to him. 

Emma Kenny, a childhood neighbour, died a few weeks after that, in early July. She had seemed an impressive figure when I was a child and friends with her youngest brother, and now that I've got to know others of her siblings I rather wish I'd known her better.

Fr Anthony Cogliolo, my parish priest from my Wilmslow days, passed on a few days later; I'd always got on well with him, and enjoyed my time with him in the parish though I think I perhaps impressed more as a reader than a CAFOD chair. He had been seriously supportive of me when I was heading towards the Dominicans and for that I'm deeply grateful.

Charlie Gunning, another childhood neighbour, died a few days after that. The onetime nextdoor neighbour of the aforementioned Emma, I'd have known him as much as a child from funny stories my mam would say as I would have from him himself, though I'm glad I got to know him in my years working in the pub.

Ian Roberts, one of my Liverpool cousins, was the first death I knew of in August. I only ever met him a few times -- usually in the company of his sweet and much-missed brother Richard -- but he was always fun to meet and I'm glad we at least got to know each other a little online in recent years. 

I did not know her, but my friend Susan lost her beloved little niece Meadbh Versuri Gorman a couple of days later; the world is dreadfully hard sometimes.

Bishop Noel Treanor died a few days after that; I had met him a few times and interviewed him at length in Belfast once, with him ringing the paper a few days later to thank me for the piece, him having been I think rather surprised at how I'd made sense of such a long and wide-ranging conversation. I do feel that both the Irish and wider European church may miss him.

Barely two months after Therese's death, her uncle Vincent Murtagh died; he was always good fun at those family events I was lucky enough to be invited to; his loss, coming after Therese's, must have been very hard.

And rounding out August, Breda Gunning, Charlie's widow, died less than a month after her husband. I'd always liked her as a child, and am glad I got to know her too as one of my regulars in my days as a loungeboy and a barman in the pub. I'm only sorry it's been so many years now since I last saw her.

Greg Hillis died in early October, having had cancer for a long time. I'd never met Greg in person, though I'd known him online for a decade or more, and had long wanted as one of my great online aspirations, to go to a baseball game with him and just spend the hours enjoying that beautiful pastime and listening to what he had to say. His was a voice of rare warmth and wisdom, and the world of online Catholicism is desperately diminished without him among us.

A couple of days later, my dad's cousin Cecil Doyle passed on. I'm afraid I didn't know him well, just as I'd not known many of my parents' cousins, but the losses of those close to us matter, and we should remember them too.

Finally, just a week ago my cousin Lyn O’Toole died. Lyn had always been part of my life, just a couple of years older than me, and it's very hard to believe she is gone - or that her mum has now outlived two of her four children. Life at times seems profoundly unfair, and I can really only just hope and pray that things make more sense on the other side of the tapestry.

And so, to turn to those who would have been in mind this day last year too...

I pray for my mum, Veronica Daly, who we lost at Christmas 2020 and laid to rest in Dublin and Liverpool over the next two years, her ashes divided between the city where her family raised her and the city where she raised her family. I pray too today for Nana and Grandad, all the Dodds, Auntie Maureen, Valerie McKenna, my cousins Philip, David, Susan, and Lily; for Auntie Brenda and Uncle Tommy, Auntie Kathleen, Great Auntie Mary, my cousins Janet and Michael, and Richard; for my uncle John; for Mam's parents, for aunt Doreen and for Monica. I pray too for Joan's husband Gerry Kavanagh, and for Edwin Bergquist and Terry Winker, both of whom I've lost from the wonderful family into which I've been blessed to marry. 

I pray for Mary and Paddy Hoare, for Mr Harwood, for Mr and Mrs McCourt, for Mrs Carrigan and for Michael Carrigan, for Mr Gahan, for Mr and Mrs Reeves, for John Ryan, Mick Doyle, Mr Lyons, Jim Freeman, Mrs Gibson, Mr and Mrs and Bernie Flanagan, Mrs Mannelly, Mr Doyle, Elizabeth Kenny, and Matt and Clare O’Reilly.

I pray for Sr Margaret Murtagh; for Johnny McGrath, Delores Spittal, Dick Molumby, Frank Beggan, Dessie Breen, Sean Forde, and Mollie O'Callaghan, and all those I know from Palmerstown Credit Union; for Gerry Hendricken, Frank Coakley, Damien Brunton, and Paddy and Margaret Trodden; for Joe and Nora Hanrahan, Matt Garrigan, Dave Leavy, Frank and Mrs Towey, Jack Farrelly, Shay Lord, Jim Skerritt, David Fitzgerald, Billy Callaghan, Jimmy Owens, Gary Kennedy, Liam Coffey, Gerry Murray, Paul's uncle Francis Kennedy and Neasa's aunt Marie Doyle, all known to me from the Silver Granite; for Mary Ward; for Tom Corr, Sean Mitchell, Eamon Woulfe, Liam Glynn, Eddie Martin, Padraic Naughton, and Bro. John Hyland from Moyle Park.

I pray for so many of my peers, taken far too soon, and for those with whom I have worked and walked: Gavan Nugent, Padraic Ryan, Anthony Desmond, Sean Kenny, Paul Brown, Claire Edmonds, Conn Murphy, Marie Plisnier, Agueda Pons, Michelle Cosgrave and her father Ollie, Ultan Sinclair, Susan Dunne and her parents Paschal and Angela, for Renate Kurzmann, and for Nina-Jayne Birley; for Kathleen Griffin and Niamh Moloney from Catholic Voices; for Maria Lezama from Cork L'Arche; for Julie Yipp and Kevin Hunneybell from my Camino, for Francis McKenzie from my visit to Peru; for Declan Moroney from the Irish Catholic and Mark Howard from Veritas.

I pray for Val Grant, Alex Walker, Theresa MacDonagh, Gerard McCarthy, Sheila Griffith, Brian Pullan whose death I missed when it happened in 2022, and Alan Gilbert from the University of Manchester; and for John, Kathleen Bibby, Mary McFaul, John and Agnes Ainsworth, and Kate Gregg, all from Wilmslow.

I pray for Sr Mary David Totah; for Fr Con Curley, Fr Gerard Byrne, and Fr Flo Lynch; for Fr David Lumsden and Fr Martin Ryan; for Fr Tom Heneghan; for Fr Simon Roche OP, Fr Martin McCarthy OP, Fr Dermot Brennan OP, Fr Bob Talty OP, and Fr Denis Keating OP; and for Sr Margarita Schwind OP.

I pray for Jenny Daly, and Sr Agnes, and Helen, and all the other ladies from Mam's nursing home.

I pray for Bill Kinsella from Boora; for Marion Doyle from Kilcormac; for Fritz Schult from Pollatomish; for Steve's wife Ruth Southall; for Sarah's grandad Alan Martindale; for Laura's grandad Tony Adams; for Jason's mum Marlene Crowley and Sophie's dad Johnny von Pfluegl; for Christopher's mum Mary Dawson; for Michael's mother Ann Kelly; for Colum's dad Joe Keating, for Eamon's dad Packie McGarty, for John's dad Gerry Duffy, for Aidan's father Colin Higgins, for the fathers of Daron Higgins, Lucy Corcoran, Dara Gantley, Bláithín Ni Giolla Rua, Martin Brady, and Bridget Martin, and the parents of Claire O'Brien; for Ned's mum Maura Hughes; for Jean's dad Kevin Callaghan; for Breda Polly and Tom Crotty; for Rory's mum Anne Fitzgerald; for Dan's wife Naima Jackson; for Mike's sister Katie Lewis; for Bob's dad Brian McCabe; for Dawn Foster and Liam Cahill who I knew just through their writing and their warmth and wisdom over the internet; for Polly and Dan’s friends Will Scott and Dominic Crisp; for George Kiely, who stood with me when I needed true support; and for John Brierley, who helped guide me on Spanish and other paths.

I pray for the souls of all those dear to those I love, for the souls of all those dear to me, and for the souls of all those whose names and faces I have forgotten. 

I pray too for the families of all those I remember, and of those who, like Francis Benedict Pyles and Margaret Mary Hill, are not themselves in need of any prayers and went to God assured of their rest in his blessed vision.

May the Lord God almighty have mercy on their souls, and may his perpetual light shine upon them; may they rest in peace.

Amen.

For those who've gone before

Today being the feast of All Souls, or The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, as my missal has it, it's time to revisit my annual post where I remember those gone before me. It's a special day in the Church calendar dedicated to trying to help those we've loved, and even those we've conspicuously failed to love, and so many who we've never known, to make their way towards God and towards becoming who they were truly created to be.

The word 'Purgatory' may not appear in the Bible, but that doesn’t mean the doctrine isn’t there, readily drawn out from references to prayers that help the dead, to how nothing imperfect can enter heaven and a fire that purifies us after death, and to a prison where souls go till their debts are paid. Those are the lessons the early Christians drew from these lessons, and from their Jewish forebears. Just as it’s for the Blessed in Heaven to pray for us, so it is for us, then, to visit those souls in prison but guaranteed to share in the Blessed Vision, praying for those destined for heaven that they may more quickly reach the top of Dante’s mountain of hope. Having done the Camino de Santiago, and even the three-day pilgrimage at St Patrick's Purgatory at Lough Derg, I have a better sense these days than I once did of how we're all in this together, obliged to pull together to help each other to the finishing line. 

With that in mind, then, I have a lot of people to pray for today, just as I hope lots of people, here or up above, are praying for me, since we all need each other's help at one time or another. Many of these, I'm sure, don't need any prayers at all, but it certainly can't hurt, and if anyone here needs any help at all, I do hope my prayers will give that, in whatever meagre way they can.

At Mass today in Whitefriar's Street I had, as ever, new names to add to those I remember every year: Liam Coffey, a father to friends and a onetime regular from my days working in the pub, latterly someone to smile, nod, and chat to at the counter of the Lord Edward, left us the day after All Souls last year;  Marion Doyle, onetime neighbour to my parents and a warm host in Kilcormac when I was a child, who died last December; Mark Howard, a coworker who died so suddenly in April, surely long before his time; Renate Kurzmann, a friend for almost a quarter of a century, and a dear host in Vienna once upon a time, taken so suddenly this May; Maria Lezama, who had taught me to be more Mary than Martha in Cork's L'Arche Community, and who passed away in July; John Brierley, who I had the pleasure of meeting once and interviewing another time,  and whose Camino books led the way for me and so many others; and Nina-Jayne Birley, who once drove me hours out of her way for the sake of an interview, and who we lost this September; Gerry Murray too, a friend of friends and a onetime regular from my barman days, and Paddy Trodden, one of Palmerstown's more distinctive figures whose family background was somehow unknown even to his next-door neighbours until he died.

I thought that was today done, but then this evening, on the way home, I learned that Declan Moroney, my onetime mentor and sub-editor on the paper, the man who drove our journalistic bus in a very real sense, had passed on too: I'd wanted to meet him at the Vermeer exhibition in Holland this year, us having had a great day together at the Dublin exhibition a few years ago, but it wasn't to be, and another attempt at crossing paths a couple of months ago also came to nothing; I'm glad I still have his many texts, mind, and so many memories, and I hope I'll have his prayers: he'll certainly have mine.

And so, to turn to those who would have been in mind this day last year too...

I pray for my mum, Veronica Daly, who we lost at Christmas 2020 and laid to rest in Dublin and Liverpool over the next two years, her ashes divided between the city where her family raised her and the city where she raised her family. I pray too today for Nana and Grandad, all the Dodds, Auntie Maureen, Valerie McKenna, my cousins Philip, David, Susan, and Lily; for Auntie Brenda and Uncle Tommy, Auntie Kathleen, Great Auntie Mary, my cousins Janet and Michael, and Richard; for my uncle John; for Mam's parents, for aunt Doreen and for Monica. I pray too for Joan's husband Gerry Kavanagh, and for Edwin Bergquist and Terry Winker, both of whom I've lost from the wonderful family into which I've been blessed to marry. 

I pray for Mary and Paddy Hoare, for Mr Harwood, for Mr and Mrs McCourt, for Mrs Carrigan and for Michael Carrigan, for Mr Gahan, for Mr and Mrs Reeves, for John Ryan, Mick Doyle, Mr Lyons, Jim Freeman, Mrs Gibson, Mr and Mrs and Bernie Flanagan, Mrs Mannelly, Mr Doyle, Elizabeth Kenny, and Matt and Clare O’Reilly.

I pray for Sr Margaret Murtagh; for Johnny McGrath, Delores Spittal, Dick Molumby, Frank Beggan, Dessie Breen, Sean Forde, and Mollie O'Callaghan, and all those I know from Palmerstown Credit Union; for Gerry Hendricken, Frank Coakley, Damien Brunton, and Margaret Trodden; for Joe and Nora Hanrahan, Matt Garrigan, Dave Leavy, Frank and Mrs Towey, Jack Farrelly, Shay Lord, Jim Skerritt, David Fitzgerald, Billy Callaghan, Jimmy Owens, Gary Kennedy, Paul's uncle Francis Kennedy and Neasa's aunt Marie Doyle, all known to me from the Silver Granite; for Mary Ward; for Tom Corr, Sean Mitchell, Eamon Woulfe, Liam Glynn, Eddie Martin, Padraic Naughton, and Bro. John Hyland from Moyle Park.

I pray for so many of my peers, taken far too soon, and for those with whom I have walked: Gavan Nugent, Padraic Ryan, Anthony Desmond, Sean Kenny, Paul Brown, Claire Edmonds, Conn Murphy, Marie Plisnier, Agueda Pons, Michelle Cosgrave and her father Ollie, Ultan Sinclair, and Susan Dunne and her parents Paschal and Angela; for Kathleen Griffin and Niamh Moloney from Catholic Voices; for Julie Yipp and Kevin Hunneybell from my Camino, and for Francis McKenzie from my visit to Peru.

I pray for Val Grant, Alex Walker, Theresa MacDonagh, Gerard McCarthy, Sheila Griffith, and Alan Gilbert from the University of Manchester; and for John, Kathleen Bibby, Mary McFaul, John and Agnes Ainsworth, and Kate Gregg, all from Wilmslow.

I pray for Sr Mary David Totah; for Fr Con Curley, Fr Gerard Byrne, and Fr Flo Lynch; for Fr David Lumsden and Fr Martin Ryan; for Fr Tom Heneghan; for Fr Simon Roche OP, Fr Martin McCarthy OP, Fr Dermot Brennan OP, Fr Bob Talty OP, and Fr Denis Keating OP; and for Sr Margarita Schwind OP.

I pray for Jenny Daly, and Sr Agnes, and Helen, and all the other ladies from Mam's nursing home.

I pray for Bill Kinsella from Boora; for Fritz Schult from Pollatomish; for Steve's wife Ruth Southall; for Sarah's grandad Alan Martindale; for Laura's grandad Tony Adams; for Jason's mum Marlene Crowley and Sophie's dad Johnny von Pfluegl; for Christopher's mum Mary Dawson; for Michael's mother Ann Kelly; for Colum's dad Joe Keating, for Eamon's dad Packie McGarty, for John's dad Gerry Duffy, for Aidan's father Colin Higgins, for the fathers of Daron Higgins, Lucy Corcoran, Dara Gantley, Bláithín Ni Giolla Rua, Martin Brady, and Bridget Martin, and the parents of Claire O'Brien; for Ned's mum Maura Hughes; for Jean's dad Kevin Callaghan; for Breda Polly and Tom Crotty; for Rory's mum Anne Fitzgerald; for Dan's wife Naima Jackson; for Mike's sister Katie Lewis; for Bob's dad Brian McCabe; for Dawn Foster and Liam Cahill who I knew just through their writing and their warmth and wisdom over the internet; for Polly and Dan’s friends Will Scott and Dominic Crisp; and for George Kiely, who stood with me when I needed true support.

I pray for the souls of all those dear to those I love, for the souls of all those dear to me, and for the souls of all those whose names and faces I have forgotten. 

I pray too for the families of all those I remember, and of those who, like Francis Benedict Pyles and Margaret Mary Hill, are not themselves in need of any prayers and went to God assured of their rest in his blessed vision.

May the Lord God almighty have mercy on their souls, and may his perpetual light shine upon them; may they rest in peace.

Amen.

Hannibal, Cyrus, and lessons in followship

Back in 2003 Toni Morrison met Peter Olson, the then CEO of Random House, at that year’s Book Expo America, and mentioned having watched a documentary on the Mongols in her hotel after a flight which had left her unsettled. Olson lit up. “I wrote my college thesis on an anti-Soviet revolt in South Central Asia,” he said, continuing, “I would contend that military histories are better for learning about corporate strategies and management technique than any other books.”

Military history is one of those fields that lends insights, ideas, and examples aplenty to modern management discussions: given how it covers leadership, intelligence, logistics, tactics, strategy, and so much more, this probably shouldn’t surprise us, but the link wasn’t always so obvious.  Indeed, according to Peter Drucker, probably the twentieth century’s most influential management guru, strategy itself was seen as a military concept, largely irrelevant to business management, as late as the 1960s:

‘Managing for Results was the first book to address itself to what is now called “business strategy”. It is still the most widely used book on the subject. When I wrote it, more than twenty years ago, my original title was, in fact, Business Strategies. But “strategy” in those days was not a term in common usage. Indeed, when my publisher and I tested the title with acquaintances who were business executives, consultants, management teachers, and booksellers, we were strongly advised to drop it. “Strategy,” we were told again and again, “belongs to military or perhaps to political campaigns but not to business.”’

The situation wasn’t quite as stark as that, of course – just two years earlier, for instance, Alfred Chandler had published Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the history of the American industrial enterprise – but certainly it seems clear that the idea that warfare had anything to say to business was far from an orthodoxy at the time. Indeed, Drucker would later state that he had not written a book on leadership because an ancient Greek had made such a project superfluous. ‘The first systematic book on leadership was written by Xenophon more than 2,000 years ago,’ he told a student, adding, ‘and it is still the best.’

The book he had in mind, oddly, was not the extraordinarily instructive Anabasis, Xenophon’s memoir of the exploits of an army of 10,000 Greek mercenaries in the Persian Empire and their attempts to come home; neither was it his Hellenica, detailing the defeat of Athens by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War and the subsequent defeat of Sparta by the resurgent Thebes. Instead, he was referring to the Cyropaedia, the fictionalised biography of the Persian Cyrus the Great, which Drucker saw as a study in both leadership and followship.  The latter, Drucker felt, was too often neglected, to the detriment of any enterprise because it is impossible to be a leader without followers. ‘To lead, one must follow,’ he observed, ‘because it is only from the viewpoint of the follower that we can reflect on the basis of followship, which when turned around becomes the essence of leadership.’

I’ll talk about the Cyropaedia another day, but I think it’s worth saying that the point that the best leaders are willing to learn, to serve, and to follow wasn’t unique to Xenophon. Here, for instance, is the Roman historian Livy describing the Carthaginian Hannibal’s brilliance both as a commander and as a subordinate:

‘Power to command and readiness to obey are rare associates; but in Hannibal they were perfectly united, and their union made him as much valued by his commander as his men. Hasdrubal preferred him to all other officers in any action which called for vigour and courage, and under his leadership the men invariable showed to the best advantage both dash and confidence. Reckless in courting danger, he showed superb tactical ability when it was upon him.

Indefatigable both physically and mentally, he could endure with equal ease excessive heat or excessive cold; he ate and drank not to flatter his appetites but only so much as would sustain his bodily strength. His time for waking, like his time for sleeping, was never determined by daylight or darkness: when his work was done, then, and then only, he rested, without need, moreover, of silence or a soft bed to woo sleep to his eyes. Often he was seen lying in his cloak on the bare ground amongst the common soldiers on sentry or picket duty. His accoutrement, like the horses he rode, was always conspicuous, but not his clothes, which were like those of any other officer of his rank and standing. Mounted or unmounted, he was unequalled as a fighting man, always the first to attack, the last to leave the field.’

Much of this – perhaps all of it – should be seen as a series of rhetorical clichés, but things often only become clichés because they’re basically true. If these are conventional compliments, they merely highlight how Livy and his audience recognised that the best leaders are good followers, and that effective leadership demands a willingness to share the hardships of those being led.

Some things don’t change. 

Silos and synods

I was at a conference in Rome a few years ago where people from Google explained that Catholic websites tend to punch well below their weight compared to those of other religious groups for the simple reason that they don’t link to other sites; in the digital environment as so often in the world at large today, Catholicism is a siloed landscape. It doesn’t have to be, though. Even just thinking about Irish history, and the kind of lessons we might draw from our most influential period, those centuries between the coming of Patrick and the Viking attacks when we supposedly saved civilization – we didn’t, but we did a lot – it shouldn’t take long for us to realise just how important networks and networking were to ‘the land of saints and scholars’.

That won’t typically be our first thought, of course. We’re far more likely to think of the likes of the island monastery of Skellig Michael. Famously isolated, the stone huts on the pyramidal island are dramatically inaccessible, so much so that they were perfectly cast in recent Star Wars films as Luke Skywalker’s hermit hideout. This very inaccessibility, this remoteness – the monastery is high on a rugged rocky spike that arises from stormy waters that cut the island off from the south-western corner of the Irish mainland – defines the monastery, but can too easily mislead us into thinking that this kind of community was somehow typical of Irish Christianity in its earliest centuries. Anything but!

That’s not to say that there weren’t Celtic monks who went off into the wilderness to seek God through contemplation – the Cambrai Homily, written around AD700, speaks of this ‘green martyrdom’, as distinct from the classical red martyrdom of those who died for the Faith and the white martyrdom of those who left their homelands to become missionary exiles – but we go wildly astray if we ever think of this as the norm. On the contrary: in the first centuries of our recorded history the Irish countryside was dotted with hundreds, even thousands, of monasteries, and while some certainly were discreet centres of contemplation, many others had roles that were pastoral, administrative, scholarly, and evangelising. They were platforms for outreach, and they were linked together.

Clonmacnoise, established by St Ciarán where the river Shannon meets the great road that was the Esker Riada, is perhaps the most obvious of these, but even when we think of the ostensibly remote beauty of Glendalough, we should keep in mind that though St Kevin settled in a beautiful spot in the Wicklow Mountains, he hardly did so in an obscure one; the monastic city that grew up around him is, after all, barely a mile from the crossroads of Laragh. St Cronán is famously described in his medieval biography as having moved his community to Roscrea because people couldn’t find it in its original home. ‘I will not be in a desert place where guests and poor people cannot easily find me,’ he supposedly said, continuing, ‘but I will stay here now in a public place.’

Our early lives of St Brigid show her travelling around the roads of central Ireland by chariot, praying as she went like an efficient commuter, and even helping her people in the building of a road, designed to carry chariots and wagons even across bog and riverside swamps. They describe her too as paying careful attention to how Mass was celebrated in Rome, so the prayers could change in Ireland if they changed in Rome, while contemporary letters from the likes of St Columbanus underline how letters and appeals to Rome were indeed a real phenomenon for the Celtic saints.

Roads, rivers, and letters all served to bind communities together, and communities would be aware too of their familial links – not merely because they’d often be expressions of local tribes and kingdoms, but because they’d be part of loose familial federations, known as paruchia, deriving from particular founder saints and those with whom he or she had studied. These federations could cross the sea, or even straddle the continent. Not that all was harmonious in or between these paruchia, of course – families can be tricky things, after all – but there were links, and the links mattered.

What’s more, the monastic leaders would travel to meet with each and learn from each other, and could come together occasionally in gatherings called synods. One synod from AD 697 begot the Cáin Adomnán, attempting to ban violence in warfare against non-combatants and especially women, for instance, while another, known as the Synod of Patrick, issued more than thirty rulings, including ones banning the receipt of donations from pagans and  threatening excommunication against anyone who believed in vampires!

Coming from the Greek syn-odos, meaning a shared journey or even a common path, synods are things we hear a lot about in Church circles nowadays, with talk of synods, synodality, synodal paths, and synodal ways. In the end, though, we should realise that they are, above all else, antidotes to siloed landscapes, a way of helping give reality and life to the Church as a network of networks. If St Brigid helped build roads across bogs, it must in part have been because without such ways – without such common paths – our monasteries would have been isolated and ineffective. Like the proverbial lighthouse in a bog, they’d have been brilliant but useless.

If synodality does nothing more than keep people talking together and praying together and working together towards common ends, it will have achieved something. Networks matter, after all.

Samildánach

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about specialisation, about picking one area and being known for being great at one thing. I’m not sure about this, though, because to take a pointer from Archilochus, the world surely needs foxes as much as it needs hedgehogs. One of the great insights in medical practice over recent decades has been that for all the status that accords to consultants, general practitioners are experts too: general practice is a specialism, as being good at many things is a remarkable gift, a speciality in its own right. Sometimes jacks of all trades are indeed masters of none, but sometimes too they are masters of many.

This reality has been recognised for millennia through the repository of human wisdom that is the world’s myths and legends, of course. Back in the seventh century BC Homer famously described Odysseus as polytropos – a word literally meaning ‘of many turnings’ – and also as polymētis (‘many-skilled’) and poikilomētis (‘dapple-skilled’). Even more than Achilles, the intense and shortlived hero of the Iliad, the hero of the Odyssey is a figure who excels in all manner of fields. As H.D.F. Kitto put it in a passage so memorably quoted in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

‘Thus the hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must endure without too much complaining what the gods send; and he can both build and sail a boat, drive a furrow as straight as anyone, beat a young braggart at throwing the discus, challenge the Pheacian youth at boxing, wrestling or running; flay, skin, cut up and cook an ox, and be moved to tears by song.  He is in fact an excellent all-rounder; he has surpassing arēte.’

Irish legend has made the same point since time immemorial, with one of its most remarkable figures being the mercurial Lugh, hero of the wars against the Fomorians and eventual father of Cuchulainn. Lugh would be famously known as Samildánach  –  ‘equally skilled in many arts’, the story of how he came to Tara underlining how wide-ranging his abilities were. As told in the medieval Second Battle of Moytura, it goes something like this:

One day, after Bres the traitor had been banished and Nuada was once more king, the Tuatha Dé Danann were feasting and celebrating at Tara when a young and handsome warrior arrived at the palace’s gate. 

‘Who are you?’ asked Gamal and Camall, the palace doorkeepers. 

‘I am Lugh Long-arm,’ the young man answered, ‘son of Cian son of Diancecht and of Ethne, daughter of Balor, fosterson of Eochaidh and Tailtiu, daughter of the King of Spain.’

‘And what can you do? No one without an art enters Tara.’

‘Try me. I am a carpenter,’ said Lugh. 

‘Then we don’t need you. We have a carpenter already – Luchta son of Luachaid.’

‘I’m a smith too,’ said Lugh.

‘We also have a smith – Colum Cualleinech of the three new processes.’

‘I am a champion.’

‘We don’t need one! Ogma son of Ethliu is our champion.’

‘I’m a harper as well.’

‘We have a harper already, Abcan son of Bicelmos, who we chose in the fairy-mounds.’

‘Well, I am a hero.’

‘We’ve no need of one – Bresal is our hero.’

‘I am a poet, and I am a historian.’

‘En son of Ethaman is our poet and historian.’

‘I’m also a sorcerer.’ 

‘Sure, we’ve no shortage of sorcerers!’

‘I am a healer.’

‘No need. Diancecht is our healer.’

‘I am a cup-bearer too.’

‘We have nine of those already!’

‘I’m even a metalworker, skilled at working in brass.’

‘We don’t need you – Credne Cerd is already our brazier.’

Lugh paused, and then said: ‘Ask the king whether he has a single man in his whole household who has all these skills. If he has, I will not enter.’

And so Lugh was welcomed to Tara, where he became the greatest of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, and was known henceforth as Samildánach, for he had many skills. 

Sometimes a breadth of expertise and the vision that comes with that is the skill we are slowest to recognise, but it can be the most valuable skill of all.

Coronation

It’s strange to read commentary on the Coronation when it wasn’t even on the radar for me on Saturday; a bit like missing the Biden visit and the indignant rantings about it from some elements of our neighbours’ fourth estate, I missed the Coronation entirely, as we had a First Holy Communion to celebrate in the family.

It seems strange to have passed over so rare an event - the first in the my lifetime, at any rate, and it only being a few years since I’d delighted my mum by meeting and shaking hands with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at a Great War commemoration in London. While I was indeed curious to watch it for historical interest, the immediate and familial won out. Why wouldn’t it, though? Kavanagh had it right, in ‘Epic’:

I have lived in important places, times

When great events were decided; who owned

That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land

Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting ‘Damn your soul!’

And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen

Step the plot defying blue cast-steel –

‘Here is the march along these iron stones’

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which

Was more important? I inclined

To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin

Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.

He said: I made the Iliad from such

A local row. Gods make their own importance.

What’s that line in Gaiman and McKean’s Signal to Noise? ‘There’s no big apocalypse. Just an endless procession of little ones.’ I’m not saying that big far-off events don’t matter, not least as you not being interested in them doesn’t mean they’re not interested in you, but it’s too easy to focus on distant spectacles and miss what matters under our noses.

I may yet catch the highlights, if anybody has a good link.

Colonists

I saw yesterday that this year’s Dublin Handelfest is being advertised, and perhaps unsurprisingly I felt that same ambivalent twinge of troubled anticipation I felt last year. The festival is great, with concerts and tours and exhibitions, but too often celebrations of Handel’s Dublin sojourn, like the city’s Georgian architecture or writers like Swift and Goldsmith, go hand-in-hand with nonsense about the eighteenth century as the capital’s golden age.

Such claims only make sense if we only care about our elites, the 3% of the population who could vote and who lived in the houses we admire today. They only make sense if we disregard the vast majority of the city’s population, the mass of urban poor who lived in destitute slums, the thousands of beggars, the thousands of prostitutes, the thousands who died in the freezing famine that killed up to a fifth of the population between 1740 and 1741 in what history would record as the 'Year of Slaughter'. They only make sense if we disregard the regular riots of the urban poor that the army was called upon to suppress time and again. They only make sense if we disregard the fact that the Kingdom of Ireland was what we would now call an apartheid state, one where the country’s Catholic majority were barely tolerated, their most basic rights curtailed and denied, discreet chapels only allowed in Dublin at all when riots were feared after a house where Mass was being celebrated collapsed, killing the celebrant and nine of those worshipping. If we disregard the violence, the robbery, the overcrowding, the typhus, the open sewers.

Pádraig Daly, the Augustinian priest-poet, has a poem called ‘Colonists’, in which he reflects on how we might be tempted to celebrate the domestic glories of those who colonised Africa. It’s not long, so I may as well quote it in full:

What hits you as strongly as the first blast

Of African heat

Is their absolute presumption,

Dividing out a land

Others had wandered since forever,

Erecting fences across the paths of hippo, zebra, lion,

Calling rivers for themselves and their bloated queens,

Corrupting the names of hollows and mountainranges,

Terming the old uncouth,

Patronising,

Slaughtering, 

Teaching servitude.

The beauty they achieved in their houses

And sweeps of trees

Is by the by.

I’m not saying the beauties and glories the elite of Georgian Dublin enjoyed amongst the squalor and sorrow of those they’d dispossessed and oppressed are ‘by the by’ -- we can, after all, enjoy them now. And, in truth, we may as well take advantage of whatever good that shower did. There was precious little of it, after all, compared to the harm they inflicted. But still: let’s not pretend this was a Golden Age; what gold there was shone among the blood and filth of a boot-trodden charnel pit.

Dignity

On the bus back from the airport yesterday I wasted the blue skies and glorious views that were surrounding me and would soon and suddenly be shrouded in an all-concealing fog by spending my time reading a frustrating essay from a few years back, a piece by Edward Feser who I used to rate, with a couple of decent books by him still on the shelves. Entitled 'Three questions for Catholic opponents of capital punishment', it's a long and obstructive piece that seems built in a way that it's hard to engage with in a comprehensive and reasonable fashion. He'd written it in 2019 in the aftermath of the previous year's change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to the effect that the death penalty should be regarded as inadmissable, and the piece had been reposted the following year after this point was driven home in the papal encyclical Fratelli tutti.

Shorn of the undergrowth and the wood that makes it hard to see the trees, what Prof. Feser is asking can be summed up as follows:

1. Does Pope Francis’s teaching on capital punishment amount to a doctrinal change or merely a prudential judgment? Prof. Feser argues that when the Pope says capital punishment should never be used, he is either making a doctrinal change that contradicts the teaching of Scripture and Tradition, or he is merely making a prudential judgment. Either way, he claims, Catholics are not obliged to agree with him.

2. Do you agree with Pope Francis that life sentences should be abolished? Pope Francis, he says, has frequently said life sentences are objectionable, and are objectionable for the same reasons as are death sentences.

3. Do you agree with Pope Francis that executing a murderer is worse than what the murderer himself did? In a 2015 letter, Prof. Feser notes, the Pope wrote that the death penalty represents a failure for any constitutional state because it obliges the State to kill in the name of justice, and that justice is never reached by killing a human being. On this point, the Pope noted Dostoyevsky's observation that 'To kill a murderer is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by a criminal.'

Now, the second and third questions can be dealt with pretty easily, and seem to exist here merely to complicate the issue. Putting aside the merits or otherwise of the Pope's opinions -- and both seem utterly defensible, with the key point ignored by Prof. Feser in the third question being that when the state kills somebody it creates a situation where there is blood on a whole society's hands, not just on those of an individual killer  -- the crucial thing here is that these are just opinions, and thus not things Catholics are expected to accept as Church teaching. We might well reflect upon them, and doing so might help us to become better Christians, but still, they're not things we're expected to sign up to. Prof. Feser might ask these questions out of interest, but they're ultimately distractions.

So, that leaves us with question one, and in looking at that it's worth noting that Prof. Feser begins his argument by saying that there are two possible interpretations of Pope Francis’s teaching on the death penalty, with him either intending to revise the relevant doctrinal principles or intending merely to make a prudential judgment about how best to apply existing doctrinal principles to current circumstances. Thing is, this -- and indeed the essay as a whole -- fundamentally ignores what the Vatican actually said when the Catechism was changed in 2019, that being that the change was an expression of doctrinal development.

In a letter explaining the change, Cardinal Ladaria wrote to say the Pope had asked for the Church's 'teaching on the death penalty be reformulated so as to better reflect the development of the doctrine on this point that has taken place in recent times', adding that 'this development centres principally on the clearer awareness of the Church for the respect due to every human life', with St John Paul II's letter Evangelium vitae being of great importance in this development. The CDF head went on to explain that the change was 'in continuity with the preceding Magisterium while bringing forth a coherent development of Catholic doctrine', and as such reflected 'an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium'. 

Curiously, Prof. Feser never even uses the terms 'development of doctrine' or 'doctrinal development' in his piece. This is unfortunate given how Cardinal Ladaria, on behalf of the Pope, had explained the recognition that the death penalty should be deemed inadmissable as a development of doctrine in relation to the Church's deepening understanding of human dignity, and the capacity of our world to realise that dignity. After all, that every single one of us is deliberately made by God in God's own image is as foundational a Catholic teaching that you're ever going to see, and the horrors of the twentieth century have helped underline just how precious that dignity is, and how easy it can be to rationalise its abuse.

I appreciate that Prof. Feser has argued extensively elsewhere that the Church has over the centuries taught infallibly that the death penalty is legitimate, but I'm not sure he does so with a suitable eye to how different magisterial levels operate, or indeed how Church teaching is structured around a hierarchy of truth, where some truths are based on other ones and are illuminated by them. In his article 'Capital punishment and the infallibility of the ordinary Magisterium', for instance, published several months before Church teaching was formally clarified in this area, the general tendency is to disregard the development of Church teaching on human dignity.

It shouldn't be hard to see that Church teaching on the legitimacy or otherwise of the death penalty relates to questions of how we can protect society, which in the end is about how we protect and recognise the dignity of human life itself; the key doctrinal question here concerns the dignity of the individual human being, made in God's image. I'm glad that the Pope, and the CDF -- or now the DDF, I suppose -- have their priorities right on this.