Pope Benedict XVI, All Saints Day homily 2006
Irish Papist
Faithful to the Living Magisterium and the Pope!
Friday, November 1, 2024
Happy All Saints Day!
Pope Benedict XVI, All Saints Day homily 2006
Friday, October 25, 2024
This is a Wonderful Story
Since 1975, students from First to Sixth class in Crosshaven Boys' National School have participated in the annual conker competition.
The trophy has been presented to the winner of the competition since 1989 and is named after a pupil, David Geary, who died at a young age.
Monday, October 21, 2024
A Decade of the Rosary
If I didn't allow my mind a certain amount of wandering during the rosary, I would never finish it. I can't exactly say how much is too much, but when I decide I've hit that limit, I begin the decade I was praying over again. Sometimes I have to do it twice or three times. Generally I let it go after that.
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Provincialism in Time
Some months ago, I found myself making a study of Idylls of the King, a long poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson which was published between 1859 and 1885, and which Tennyson considered his most important work. A long blank verse running to thousands of lines, it chronicles the decline of Camelot over many interlinked stories, and Tennyson used it not only to comment on the human condition but on the Victorian England in which he lived.
The poem was of interest to me for several reasons. The main reason was that I had long admired its sublime climax, “The Passing of Arthur”, which was in fact the earliest part of the poem to be written. Many of its lines would be widely recognized. The line “authority forgets a dying King” is quoted in the movie JFK, and the exchange from which it is taken—between the wounded Arthur and the last of his knights—supplies some more oft-quoted lines:
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
The whole poem is an argument for the spiritual in the face of the material and utilitarian, although that is simplifying its theme considerably.
I was also attracted to the poem because it is rather neglected. Back in its day, it was a popular favourite, selling (hard to believe now) tens of thousands of copies. Today, in a time when long poetry is rarely read—and I find it a trudge, as much as anybody else does—the Idylls are a masterpiece more known about than known. The brave souls who embark upon long poetry for its own sake might tackle Paradise Lost or The Faerie Queen, but not Idylls. The road not taken has its own appeal.
I also wanted to know what commentators had said about the poem. Luckily, my library job gives me access to the archives of most literary journals, so I printed off about a dozen essays on the poem, ranging from the early twentieth century to today.
Reading them, I found myself falling into a rather strange and pleasant mood. It reminded me of how I used to feel as a teenager, when I would read a bundle of recent newspapers, enjoyably insulated from the immediacy of their controversies.
Nearly all of the articles mentioned the critical vicissitudes of the poem over time, very consciously relating it to the intellectual and scholarly preoccupations that had succeeded one another since its publication. Victorian critics had admired the idealism of the poem; critics in the interwar and post-war eras preferred the darker, more pessimistic undertones (after all, the whole poem is about the fall of Camelot, and the inability of King Arthur’s knights to live up to his angelic ideals); when post-modernism became the fashion, critics began to pay more attention to the poem’s intricate narrative structure, with its nested tales within tales and its unreliable narrators.
Here’s a funny thing, I found myself thinking. Why do I find myself enjoying this bird’s eye view of Idylls of the Kings’s critical history, admiring how each period had its own relationship to the text, when I am so scornful of academic fashions in general? I remembered my brief foray into studying English at university level, and the disdain I felt for the feminist, post-modernist, and post-colonial approaches they took to the various texts. Literature, I thought, should be timeless, universal, addressed to the depths of the human condition that are beyond the catch-cries of the day. Now, however, as I savoured the critical history of Idylls of the King, I felt like a party pooper.
And it confronted me with a question which I’d never contemplated before. That is, why did conservatives (like) myself have such a deep appreciation of character and atmosphere when it came to place, but a rather disdainful attitude towards character and atmosphere when it came to time? Why was I delighted to learn that a country or a region or a village had its own distinctive ways and manners, but so hostile towards any notion of a zeitgeist, or contemporary sensibilities? Why was I so warm towards provincialism in space, but so hard on provincialism in time?
It’s certainly the case that conservatives should defend eternal truths of the human condition, and indeed the supernatural order, over ideologies of the moment. But is there perhaps, a danger that we are too intolerant of the flavour of our particular niche in time? As pilgrims on this earth, shouldn’t we be as eager to enjoy the distinctiveness of the time we pass through as travellers in a foreign country?
Sunday, October 6, 2024
Ivy Day 2024
Happy Ivy Day 2024!
Ivy Day is the annual commemoration of Charles Stewart Parnell, the "uncrowned king" of Ireland who came close to winning Home Rule. He died on this day in 1891.
Every year since then, there's been a commemoration at his grave in Glasnevin cemetery. It used to be a big deal (a long time ago), but it's a pretty subdued affair now. There's a speech by a dignitary, a wreath-laying, and a piper playing a tune or two.
As my readers will know, I'm mad about the traditions, especially neglected and minor traditions. So for many years, I meant to attend the Ivy Day commemoration, but never got round to it. Last year I finally did, and this year I attended a second time. So it's a bona fide personal tradition now.
This year, the speaker was the Taoiseach, Simon Harris. For this reason, I thought there might be more of a crowd, but there wasn't. There was probably around fifty people there.
I actually wrote an article on the history of Ivy Day for this month's Ireland's Own. You can read the first few paragraphs here. (Or you can subscribe and read the rest of it, and all my other articles, including my Irish priests series which now includes thirty-five priests.)
Here are some pictures and a very amateurish minute or so of video from today's event.
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Back to the Seventies
I've just finished reading The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics by Bruce Schulamn. It held my interest from beginning to end. I don't think there's really more of a compliment you can pay to a book, unless it's that you return to it.
I've been fascinated by the seventies all my life. Here's a blog post I wrote about the atmosphere of the seventies. Are such musings of interest to anyone else? Maybe not. But that's the benefit of a blog; you can write about things that might or might not be of interest to other people.
I love everything about the seventies. I love the music: Led Zeppelin, Slade, Horslips, Wings. (Actually, three of those bands happened to break up in 1980!) I love the movies: Shaft, Airplane! (I know it was released in 1980), The Wicker Man, Halloween, The Color of Money. (And let's not forget the best Carry On films, like Carry On At Your Convenience.) I even love the interior decoration, which is possibly the most detested aspect of the seventies now-- apart from disco, that is.
Speaking of disco (which I personally like), here is the funniest paragraph from the book: "The anti-disco frenzy reached its peak in Chicago on a hot July in 1979. Desperate to revive sagging attendance at home games, the White Sox sponsored Disco Demolition Nite at Comiskey Park. Before a game with the Detroit Tigers, the master of ceremonies detonated a mountain of disco records piled up on the stadium floor. Thousands of white teenagers flooded onto the field; the resultant riot lasted for two hours, causing much damage, many injuries, and isolated incidents of mayhem in the surrounding black community. The White Sox forfeited the game."
In a way, the seventies are topical right now. The event that determined the course of the decade, more perhaps than anything else, was the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the OPEC oil embargo of Israel's allies. The price of oil shot up and, even after the embargo, it remained high. This brought an end to the unique economic growth of the post-war world. Today, of course, Israel seems to be once again at the centre of world history.
The nineteen-seventies also saw the rise of the religious right in America, and a general flourishing of interest groups and identity politics. Black nationalism, "white ethnic" nationalism (like Chicano nationalism), gay rights, feminism (and anti-feminism), and other interest groups began to distinguish themselves from the mainstream. In some ways, I find this sort of climate congenial, even though I haven't much fondness for some of the social movements involved (like feminism). Pluralism appeals to me, as long as it's operating within the context of a shared culture (which I think America has always had).
The book has little to say about Ireland, which isn't too surprising. Or Catholicism, rather more surprisingly.
Nor does it (as far as I can remember) mention the book I'm reading now, The Exorcist (1973), or indeed any of the horror sensations of the decade: The Omen, Halloween, The Amityville Horror, or the rise of Stephen King to literary superstardom.
But, on the whole, certainly a book I would recommend to anybody with even a passing interesting in the decade of glitterballs, earthy tones, and stagflation.
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
A Big Buffet of Facebook
I remember in sixth class in school, when I was 11 or 12, I wrote a "column" with the title Bald Hawk Pool (a fanciful translation of my first name), sitting at my desk. I remember the very first article was in defence of stereotypes and the truth they generally contain. That's how long I've felt like this. Ha!
I'm always interested in learning new words, but it raises an issue in terms of writing. The consensus these days (and for quite some time) seems to favour a simple, direct style. This isn't just a question of communication but also of aesthetics. Plain English is held to be more elegant and forceful.
And I completely agree with this. (My own exemplar of masterful language use is Yeats's couplet: "The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun".)
But isn't there a danger that language will become unduly simplified if writers avoid the rare and archaic?
I remember reading an interview with the children's writer Helen Cresswell in which she was asked about her tendency to use rather advanced vocabulary in her books. (She actually introduced me to the word 'stipulate'.) Her reply was: "Well, if my readers don't know a word, they can jolly well look it up in the dictionary".
And, although the most poetic language is generally simple, this isn't always the case. Many of the most popular passages in English literature retain their popularity despite archaic terms. Who talks about fardels or a bare bodkin these days? An example that often comes to my mind is the enduringly popular Irish ballad A Nation Once Again. As a kid, I was stumped by the words "our fetters rent in twain". Not a phrase anyone would use today. It doesn't stop anyone belting it out in the pub.
In the first place, I am a melancholic. I wish I wasn't. I can't help suspecting that melancholics are a drain on the world insofar as they are melancholics, while cheerful and exuberant people lift us all up.
My melancholia consists mostly in anticipating failure for myself and everything I care about. I'm always fighting a battle against this. On a larger scale, this means anticipating defeat for every cause I cherish. My outlook is like Tolkien's. The Shadow is only ever defeated temporarily.
Another source of melancholia is a deep, deep sadness at the transience of all things. I can never remember a time I did not feel this.
My anticipation of failure gives me a sort of Hobbesian appreciation of any kind of social order. (I've never read Hobbes.)The absence of famine, war and chaos seems to me a massive achievement in itself. I am always apprehensive any radical change will endanger this.
OK, that's the downer stuff. Underneath all that, there is a sense of wonder which I've always felt but which was hugely developed when I discovered G.K. Chesterton.
I can wholeheartedly agree with Chesterton that mere existence itself outweighs infinitely anything that can be said against it. I love his words about the abyss of light that lies at the back of all our minds. As one Church Father said: "Concepts create idols. Only wonder understands".
But, a step below that (as it were) I feel a constant wonder and gratitude at how things are in their simplest categories. Space and time: man and woman: sleep and waking etc.
And finally, a lifelong humanism, best expressed perhaps in Hamlet's "What a piece of work is a man" speech.
But it came into my mind through reading the Parnell biography I'm reading. They really did love to be ceremonial back then. It was customary for a person chairing a meeting to surrender the chair so that someone else could occupy it and call for a vote of thanks for the previous chair. Unyoking horses from a guest of honour's carriages so that the crowd could pull it themselves was another practice. And so on....the book is full of toasts, banners, rosettes, banquets, parades, processions, custom-written ballads, and so forth. And this seems to have been a popular appetite, not just an upper-class thing.
I guess you like this sort of thing or you don't. I like it. There is far too little ceremony in today's society, for my liking. I'm always pleased when I walk past the O'Reilly Hall in UCD and there are graduates in their robes and mortar-boards outside. It's one of the few ceremonial occasions we have left. One of the lecturers told me that, some time ago, there was a proposal to remove Latin from the graduation ceremonies. It quickly died a death, in the face of popular opposition. People wanted their "Harry Potter moment", as he put it.
"I cannot help having a dim suspicion that dignity has something to do with style; but anyhow the gestures, like the songs, of my grandfather’s time and type had a good deal to do with dignity. But, used as he was to ceremonial manners, he must have been a good deal mystified by a strange gentleman who entered the office and, having conferred with my father briefly on business, asked in a hushed voice if he might have the high privilege of being presented to the more ancient or ancestral head of the firm. He then approached my grandfather as if the old gentleman had been a sort of shrine, with profound bows and reverential apostrophes.
“You are a Monument,” said the strange gentleman, “Sir, you are a Landmark.”
My grandfather, slightly flattered, murmured politely that they had certainly been in Kensington for some little time.
“You are an Historical Character,” said the admiring stranger. “You have changed the whole destiny of Church and State.”
My grandfather still assumed airily that this might be a poetical manner of describing a successful house-agency. But a light began to break on my father, who had thought his way through all the High Church and Broad Church movements and was well-read in such things. He suddenly remembered the case of “Westerton versus Liddell” in which a Protestant churchwarden prosecuted a parson for one of the darker crimes of Popery, possibly wearing a surplice.
“And I only hope,” went on the stranger firmly, still addressing the Protestant Champion, “that the services at the Parish Church are now conducted in a manner of which you approve.”
My grandfather observed in a genial manner that he didn’t care how they were conducted. These remarkable words of the Protestant Champion caused his worshipper to gaze upon him with a new dawn of wonder, when my father intervened and explained the error pointing out the fine shade that divides Westerton and Chesterton. I may add that my grandfather, when the story was told, always used to insist that he had added to the phrase “I don’t care how they are conducted,” the qualifying words (repeated with a grave motion ot the hand) “provided it is with reverence and sincerity.” But I grieve to say that sceptics in the younger generation believed this to have been an afterthought.
Here's something odd. I recently found myself reading about a Lord Mayor of Dublin back in the day. It occurred to me that I didn't know who the current Lord Mayor of Dublin is. (I'm guessing you don't, either. I asked a few people and they didn't know. It's James Geoghegan of Fine Gael.)
And, for some reason-- how can you explain this?-- I derive GREAT PLEASURE from reflecting that the Lord Mayor of Dublin is an ancient title, going back to 1229, and that (most of the time) most people don't know who it is. The pleasure is from the combination of those facts. I can't explain it. I could analyse it in a long discursion, but nobody wants that.
I suppose I only notice the Lord Mayor when he/she does something controversial or annoying. Looking at the recent holders of the office, I remember Caroline Conroy because she got rid of the live animal Crib at the Mansion House. And I remember Hazel Chu because everything she says and does is annoying.
"I mentioned that Lord Monboddo told me, he awaked every morning at four, and then for his health got up and walked in his room naked, with the window open, which he called taking an air bath; after which he went to bed again, and slept two hours more. Johnson, who was always ready to beat down any thing that seemed to be exhibited with disproportionate importance, thus observed: 'I suppose, Sir, there is no more in it than this, he awakes at four, and cannot sleep till he chills himself, and makes the warmth of the bed a grateful sensation.'"
From The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell (1791).
Interesting in the light of what historians are now discovering about "biphasic sleep".
For many years now (easily a decade) I've set my alarm two hours earlier than I have to get up, so I can wake up and immediately go back to sleep. Somehow I feel it prepares me for the shock of getting up and makes it easier. Otherwise I feel I've just closed my eyes and have to get up again. I've been told this is very unhealthy but perhaps I'm just continuing a venerable tradition!
But the genius of Boswell to remember these little trifles...