Chesterton Society Meeting

In 2010, along with my friend Angelo Bottone, I started the GK Chesterton Society of Ireland. As anyone who has read a few posts of this blog might have noticed already, I am an enormous Chesterton fan. He is easily my favourite author, and reading him never fails to inspire and arouse me. The two books that were instrumental in convincing me of the truth of theistic belief and Christianity were The Last Superstition by Edward Feser and Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton.

For me, Chesterton has that most essential ingredient of a favourite author; that he says all the things that I dimly felt, but was never able to put into words, and he says them better than I can imagine anybody else saying them.

I think our modern society cries out for an injection of Chesterton; its ennui cries out for his gusto, its tired sophistication cries out for his hearty innocence, its weariness cries out for his wonder, its greed cries out for his gratitude. So I thought that Ireland, like other countries, should have a Chesterton society.

Unfortunately, I am a terrible organizer, mostly on account of my shyness and my awkwardness about ever asking anybody for anything, so the Chesterton society has had a rather spasmodic and flickering existence. Still, people have come along to all the meetings so far. I hoped the thing might gain a momentum of its own, but unfortunately that never happened.

In any case, we are ploughing ahead, and the sixth Irish Chesterton Society meeting will take place on 16th of March at twelve o'clock, in the Central Catholic Library in 74 Merrion Square. (The Central Catholic Library have kindly let us use their facilities since our second meeting.)

Any readers who are Chesterton fans and who are free that afternoon might think about toddling along.