Category Archives: Religion

Grassroots peace efforts continue despite Stormont crisis

Bill Shaw shrugged when asked about the latest crisis at Stormont.

“It doesn’t matter what they are doing at Stormont,” he told Irish Network-DC 10 September. “The peace process was birthed by community workers. It’s community activists that are taking the biggest risks, not the politicians.”

Bill Shaw. Photo by @IrishNewworkDC

Bill Shaw. Photo by @IrishNetworkDC

Shaw works at 174 Trust, a Christian-based social justice organization that has been “building peace and promoting reconciliation” in North Belfast for more than 30 years. He has been the director since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.

The organization is located inside a remodeled former Presbyterian church on Duncairn Avenue. Groups and activities range from A.A. and Aspergers support to a Boxing Club and an Older Peoples Group. There are after school programs and pregnancy care. There are plenty of art exhibits and performances, even an Irish language class.

“We are finding common issues that will bring people together,” Shaw said. “People don’t stop being Catholic or Protestant, but they go back to segregated communities as changed people.”

St. Patrick’s Church in London’s Soho Square

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LONDON — Irish Catholicism is hardly the first thing that comes to mind when considering the historic sweep of this great city of the world. But it holds a small corner of Soho.

I wanted to visit St. Patrick’s Catholic Church here, as I have in other cities. Now I have.

“St Patrick’s is the first Church in England, at least since the Reformation, dedicated to St Patrick,” according to this parish history. “It was also one of the first Catholic parish Churches established after the passing of the Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791, which brought freedom of teaching and worship.”

St. Patrick and the sanctuary.

St. Patrick and the sanctuary.

 

 

Remembering the dead with annual cemetery Mass

The annual Mass for the dead at Killahenny graveyard is 17 July at 8 p.m. I wish I could attend. My maternal great grandparents and numerous relations are buried at this tiny cemetery next to the Ballybunion Golf Course.

Undated photo of John and Johanna Diggin, who died in 1940 and 1945, respectively.

Undated photo of John and Johanna Diggin, who died in 1940 and 1945, respectively.

“The Cemetery Mass, or annual Pattern, is a very special date that communities revolve around,” Miriam Donohoe wrote in this 2014 piece for the Irish Independent. She continued:

“A lot of work goes into sprucing up graveyards. Weathered headstones are freshly scrubbed, graves decorated with fresh flowers and wreaths and plots weeded. It is significant event, reaffirming bonds of kinship through the previous generations. Cemetery Sunday [not always on a Sunday] is about honoring ancestors, remembering parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and reminding ourselves of the larger connections within the community.”

Here’s another story about Cemetery Sunday from the A Trip to Ireland Blog.

As for Killahenny, it came to great attention after President Bill Clinton played the Ballybunion Golf Course (opened in 1893) in September 1998. In a Golf magazine story about his favorite courses, Clinton recalled:

I stood on the first tee in front of more than 10,000 people, without having taken a single practice shot, looking at one of the most intimidating opening shots in golf. A cemetery borders the fairway for 200 yards down the right side, and on that day, a strong wind was blowing from left to right. I aimed the driver well left but the wind curved it over and beyond the cemetery anyway. I was so keyed up I missed the next two shots and made a triple-bogey 7.

A 2002 story in the Wall Street Journal quoted a course official as claiming the cremated remains of at least 50 golfing businessmen from around the world had been scattered from the bunker above the 17th tee, the highest point on the course. Friends of other deceased fans of the course reportedly have returned with the clubs of their playing partners, burying them in the Killahenny cemetery.

 

Catholic parish records now available online

Catholic parish records held by the National Library of Ireland are finally available online. The Irish Times said:

These parish register records are considered the single most important source of information on Irish family history prior to the 1901 census. Dating from the 1740s to the 1880s, they cover 1,086 parishes throughout the island of Ireland, and consist primarily of baptismal and marriage records.

Here’s more background on the project from NLI. Or, start searching.

In a helpful blog post, Kay Caball at My Kerry Ancestors warns that because the records are not indexed researchers should have some idea of the parish, date and even month they are looking for. “You can’t just pop someone’s name in and hope that all will be revealed.”

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Confederate battle flag and NI marching season

It’s marching season in Northern Ireland, and this year there’s some extra attention on appearances of the Confederate battle flag, subject of much controversy in the American South.

Writing in National Catholic Reporter, Mary Ann McGivern notes the similarity of arguments between those who believe celebrating Protestant King William of Orange’s 1690 victory over Catholic King James II is a matter of heritage, and those who say it represents hate. She writes:

As far as I can see, most of the people who wield these symbols of supremacy and privilege don’t have the ugly history in the forefront of their minds. The flags and songs are an excuse for drinking and maybe for finding someone to beat up — in short, for exercising privilege today.

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The U.S. has been focusing attention on the June murder of nine African-Americans inside their South Carolina church, and the alleged 21-year-old killer photographed with the battle flag on a website attributed to him and filled with racist rants. South Carolina political leaders are trying to remove the flag from the statehouse grounds. But Business Insider reported the “stars and bars” also flies in other nations around the world, for various reasons. In Northern Ireland, the dissident Red Hand Defenders have marched with the flag due to their links with Ulster-Scots who fought for the Confederacy.

Now, with marching season building to its 12 July climax, the Confederate flag has been erected outside the home of a black family in East Belfast. One local politician told the UK Independent: “The flying of this flag is closely intertwined with historical slavery and racist tension, as can be seen by its glorification during recent racially-motivated attacks in the US.”

And in Co. Antrim, the Belfast Telegraph reported Confederate and Nazi flags were flown along with the Union Jack and loyalist paramilitary flags near a Carrickfergus bonfire site. The BBC later reported the Nazi flags were removed.

Post-referendum reflections on Irish Catholicism

There’s a lot of analysis about Ireland’s successful same-sex marriage referendum and the legacy of the Catholic Church: Here’s a sampling, starting with perhaps the most widely quoted post-election remark.

“The Church needs a reality check right across the board, to look at the things we are doing well and look at the areas where we need to say, have we drifted away completely from young people?” — Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin told RTE.

“The Joyful Death of Catholic Ireland,” by James Matthew Wilson in Crisis Magazine, The Voice for the Faithful Catholic Laity.

The reason the Irish—as Irish—are celebrating is that they have with this referendum delivered a decisive and final blow to their venerable image as a Catholic nation. They have taken their vengeance on the Church. They must relish the unshackling; they must love the taste of blood. But, finally, they take joy in becoming what, it seems, they were always meant to become. An unexceptional country floating somewhere in the waters off a continent that has long since entered into cultural decline, demographic winter, and the petty and perpetual discontents that come free of charge to every people that lives for nothing much in particular.

“Gay vote shows it’s not your grandfather’s Ireland any more,” By Niall O’Down in Irish Central.

Much of the mainstream media in the US missed … the death of monochrome, one holy and Catholic Ireland that passed away at least a decade or so ago and the new multi-ethnic ethos that prevails.

“Ireland has said ‘yes’ to gay marriage and ‘no’ to Catholicism,” by The Telegraph.

The Irish referendum on gay marriage was about more than just gay marriage. It was a politically trendy, media backed, well financed howl of rage against Catholicism.

“Gay Marriage in Ireland Isn’t a ‘No’ to Catholicism,” by Time.

Ireland’s historic decision to pass gay marriage by popular vote Saturday has led many to question the strength of the Catholic Church in the land of St. Patrick. For example, The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley wrote that Ireland’s “yes” to gay marriage was a “no” to Catholicism. But such simplistic reductions miss the complex and evolving Catholic worldview on civil gay marriage. … In fact, many who voted “yes” on gay marriage did so because of their faith, not in spite of it.

“Same-sex marriage vote an ‘unmitigated disaster’ for Church,” opinion column in The Irish Times that quotes several members of the liberal, pro-“Yes” Association of Catholic Priests.

“Catholic Church Ponders Future After Same-Sex Marriage Vote in Ireland,” by The New York Times.

Ireland approves same sex marriage in historic vote

Irish voters have enshrined same-sex marriage rights in the Republic’s constitution, becoming the world’s first nation to give such approval through popular referendum.

With all 43 constituencies counted, the “Yes” vote was just over 62 percent, compared to just shy of 38 percent “No.” Some Dublin constituencies approved the measure by more than 70 percent. Roscommon-South Leitrim was the only constituency to vote against. (My ancestral homeland of Kerry North-West Limerick voted “Yes” by 55.4 percent to 44.5 percent.)

Nationwide turnout was 60.5 percent.

Ireland’s Catholic Church records go online 8 July

The waiting ends 8 July. That’s when the National Library of Ireland says it will go live with free online access to some 400,000 microfilm images of Irish Catholic parish records from the 1740s to the 1880s.

The records release has been highly anticipated by genealogists and other history buffs since being announced late last year.

St. Patrick’s Day, 2015

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s a round up of some of the best coverage and related material.

BONUS: While many drank the night away, Angie Drobnic Holan and I read to each other some of our favorite Irish poems, which can seen from the link on her name.

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A simpler St. Patrick’s Day wish, 1953

I want to get away from all the noise and nonsense that’s come to surround St. Patrick’s Day, the once reverent, if myth-filled, holy day turned raucous global celebration.

So here’s a reminder of a simpler St. Patrick’s Day, a 1953 letter from a sister in Kerry, Ireland to her brother in Pittsburgh, USA. It’s from a collection of letters I inherited from my aunt a few years ago. A few other letters from the 1950s also included sprigs of shamrock from the north Kerry countryside.

 

Keep in mind that 1953 was seven years before the election of John F. Kennedy as president (a decade before his return to Ireland and assassination later the same year), and nine years before Chicago began to dye its river green. While the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin dates to 1931, it was nothing like today’s massive multi-day festivals.