A Real Groaner For You

Which soccer team do zombies support?

Moan United!

Another Tradition Blog Out There

Regular readers will know of my other blog, Traditions Traditions Traditions! I'm saying they'll know about it, not that they'll care about it. It's clear that nobody cares about it so far, except for me and my monkey. And I'm not even sure about my monkey, to be honest.

Anyway, I was checking to see if it would show up on a google search (it didn't). But I did find this other traditions blog, In Search of Traditional Customs and Ceremonies, which looks absolutely delightful.

I haven't had a good look at it yet, but it seems to be focused mostly on quaint local English traditions.

It's not exactly soothing on the eye, but it's been going since 2012, and still seems to be regularly updated. I look forward to many hours of browsing it!

From the Dictionary of Irish Biography Entry on Patrick Duigenan

Patric Duigenan (1735-1816) was a convert to the Church of Ireland, a vehement opponent of the Catholicism he had been born into, a lawyer, a politician, and a secretary of the Orange Order. I love this paragraph from his entry in the indispensable DIB:

Duigenan's character was a mass of contradictions; he could swing alarmingly, and inconsistently, from one position to another. He was rude and overbearing in public, always feuding with someone, yet in private was renowned for his kindness and good humour. Involved in at least two duels, each time he acquitted himself strangely; on one occasion he refused to fire, a second time he brought a blunderbuss on to the field. The extremism of his writings was not helped by his style: he wrote rapidly and never checked what he had written, believing that this would only lead him to delete the most offensive sections.

Read the whole thing here, if you're so inclined.

An Updated Version of My Lesser-Known Irish Words and Phrases List

Whenever it comes to a discussion of Irish slang and idioms, it's always the same handful that come to mind; eejit, craic, bold, etc. But there's loads of others that are used all the time but that never really make it into such lists, since we're barely conscious of using them.

So every time I find myself using a lesser-known Irishism, or hear one, I add it to the list.

Today I found myself using the word "loola", meaning "lunatic", and added it to the list. I decided I might as well post the list with all the latest additions. I've put expressions in bold which occur pretty much on a daily basis. I'm confident in saying that the expressions in bold would be used thousands of times every day in Ireland.

Others are less common; most Irish people to whom I mentioned the expression "sent from Billy to Jack" had never heard it. Nevertheless, it is indeed used and it's only used in Ireland. Do an internet search if you don't believe me.

So here we go:

Youu’re some flower (You’re quite a character).

The biggest (or greatest) such-and-such that ever walked out (e.g., “The greatest liar that ever walked out”). Never used as a compliment.

Sent from Billy to Jack (Being sent from one person, department etc. to another). Quite rare.

You’re a star (Thank you).

Tell me this and tell me no more (Asked for emphasis before asking a question).

Get out of that garden (Stop messing about). Usually jocular.

You’re very good (Thank you).

You're some tulip (You’re quite a character). Rare.

At all at all (Used for emphasis).

Goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye (Ending phonecalls).

He's a total looper (He’s crazy).

You're some boy (You’re quite a character).

In the ha’penny place (Not as good as someone else).

No bother to you! (You could easily do that).

What is this I was going to say? (Said when you lose your train of thought. I've never heard any non-Irish people say this.)

In the name and honour of all that’s good and holy (For emphasis). Rare these days, or jocular.

Fussing and foostering (Fidgeting and behaving restlessly). I get the impression this one is quite archaic, although when I mentioned it to other Irish people, they'd heard it. I've only ever heard it from my mother, who died in 2001.

Moidered (Exhausted, harassed, pestered).

Hurler on the ditch (Someone who gives advice about something they don’t do themselves).

Pass remarkable (said of someone who makes snide comments, or just intrusive comments. "He's a very pass remarkable kind of guy"-- he's the kind of person who passes remarks.)

Mílemurder (pronounced meela-murder, a combination of Irish "míle", meaning thousand, and murder. Basically means 'blue murder', a hubbub, a commotion. One of my favourites.)

The Irish Gaelic phrase "rí-rá agus rúla-bula", pronounced ree-raw ogus roola-boola, and meaning uproar and commotion, is fairly often used in Hiberno-English. I think the constituent elements are used on their own more often, to mean the same thing. Indeed, I've never actually heard the whole phrase used, to my knowledge. Always used jocularly.

Loola (mad).

I will in my eye. (I absolutely will not. "I will in my eye pay to use the bathroom". Can also be used to express scepticism about something that somebody else supposedly did: "She did in her eye get up at six in the morning".)

An Attempt at an Aphorism

Humility smells great, but tastes terrible.

Footnote, which is going to be several times longer that the post: I'm personally not at all keen on artificial intelligence, so I was partly pleased and partly disconcerted at the AI-generated explanation which came up (unsolicited) when I googled this aphorism, to see if anyone else had said it before me. I was pleased because my aphorism obviously conveys what it's supposed to convey if AI understands it in a jiffy. Disconcerted because the advance of AI scares me, even though I realize it's not actually thinking. Anyway, this is what it said:

The phrase "humility smells great but tastes terrible" is a metaphor for a difficult truth or virtue that is admired but unpleasant to experience. Humility is seen as a great quality that makes one admirable, but the act of being truly humble can feel demeaning, especially when it involves acknowledging one's own limitations or being perceived as "too" humble, which can be harmful. The phrase uses a play on the senses to express this complex idea: while humility is a virtue that smells "good" (is a positive thing to have), putting that virtue into practice can have a negative "taste" (be an unpleasant experience).

Smells great: Humility is often described as a virtue, a positive quality that is respected and admired. It makes people seem better, more relatable, and easier to work with.

Tastes terrible: The experience of being humble can be difficult. It might involve acknowledging that you don't know everything, admitting you're wrong, or putting someone else's needs before your own. These actions can be uncomfortable and feel like a sacrifice, even if they are ultimately for the best.

The metaphor: The phrase draws a parallel between the abstract concept of humility and the physical experience of taste and smell. The smell (how others perceive it) is positive, but the taste (the internal, personal experience of it) is negative. This highlights the difference between an admired virtue and the personal cost of practicing it.

Habemus Cathedral!

Dublin has an official cathedral for the first time since the Reformation!

I wrote this about the (formerly) Pro-Cathedral in a fairly recent post, "The Atmosphere of Dublin":

Another strange one-- the Pro-Cathedral seems quintessentially Dublin to me. I hated it as a child. My father used to take my brother and me into it to light a candle every now and again (probably not more than five times in all). It seemed dark, musty, reminiscent of death and mortality, haphazardly laid-out, and ramshackle. Now, of course, all these things appeal to me.

Presumably people will still call it "the Pro-Cathedral". I'll be disappointed if they don't!

Bliss

I've been contemplating this post for a good while. But I've put off writing it, both because it's about something that's very important to me and because it's something that's very hard to put into words.

For many years, I've been aware of a contradiction in my own personality. Temperamentally I'm a pessimist, but philosophically (for want of a better word) I'm an optimist.

When it comes to my own life and experiences, I nearly always expect to be disappointed. I nearly always anticipate that things won't work. This extends to very mundane things. If I make a joke and somebody laughs, I'm both delighted and amazed. (People who have heard my jokes will probably say this is entirely justified.)

But it extends to bigger things, as well. Don't ask me who's going to win the next big election or referendum that we all care about. My answer is always: "The side that I'd like to see lose."

Similarly, the current indications of a revival of Christianity flabbergast me. I didn't expect to see this in my lifetime.

So I'm a pessimist by nature. And yet I've never been attracted to philosophical (or artistic) pessimism.

I've generally been drawn to optimistic art and entertainment. For instance, Star Trek, which is not only optimistic but downright utopian. Or Groundhog Day, which is all about a cynical jerk learning to appreciate the beauty of everyday and ordinary. Or the US version of The Office, which is deeply sentimental and upbeat under its upper layer of cringe comedy. Or the "Fanfare for the Makers" section from Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal.

(Not that I never like pessimistic entertainment. But I like it as an astringent cordial.)

The last day of the twentieth century was a big day for me, because I won a millennium poetry competition organized by ITV Teletext. My poem drew on Lord Alfred Tennyson's famous "New Year's bells" section from In Memoriam-- "Ring out the thousand wars of old, ring out the thousand years of peace"-- and contrasted it with the horrors of the twentieth century. But it ended on a defiantly hopeful note:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky--
Though every hope may be disproved
May none see through such jaundiced eye
As to regard this night unmoved--

Although so many a New Year peal
Brought forth so many a hope untrue
Still whisper with unvanquished zeal
Ring out the old, ring in the new;

Ring in the new, ring out the old;
For who can say that hopes are vain?
And if they fail a thousandfold
May others hope them all again.

So I'm a pessimist by nature but an optimist by choice.

In some ways, being a thoroughgoing pessimist leads to an optimistic view of the world-- or, at least, a relatively approving view of the world. Things are never quite as bad as a pessimist expects (most of the time). If you are not currently living through war, famine, plague, or anarchy-- well, things could be much worse.

(There's an amusing illustration of this in a Tom Sharpe novel-- one of the WIlt novels, though I forget which one. Wilt describes Lord of the Flies as a sickeningly sentimental novel, since the author actually seems surprised and outraged that an island of schoolboys would descend to barbarity!)

But this route to optimism from pessimism isn't just a reaction to circumstances, at least in my case. It's a reaction to the underlying conditions of existence. For instance, I've often found myself feeling grateful for the fact that most of us, most of the time, confidently expect to live another day and another year. I can imagine a world where this wasn't the case, not just in times of war or sickness but in times of peace and health. What if all human life was literally as precarious as a war-zone?

The poetry of Louis MacNeice nourished (and expressed) this sense of pessimistic optimism, or pessimistic gratitude. But don't worry, I'm not going to divert into MacNeice just now.

As you can imagine, the discovery of G.K. Chesterton in my late twenties was an epoch in my life. Principally because Chesterton carried me over the finish line of faith in Christianity, but also because he vindicated and amplified this innate sense of gratitude and wonder, under all my pessimism.

Out of dozens of possible Chesterton passages I could quote, the "abyss of light" passage from Chaucer might be the best: "There is at the back of all our lives an abyss of light, more blinding and unfathomable than any abyss of darkness; and it is the abyss of actuality, of existence, of the fact that things truly are, and that we ourselves are incredibly and sometimes almost incredulously real. It is the fundamental fact of being, as against not being; it is unthinkable, yet we cannot unthink it, though we may sometimes be unthinking about it; unthinking and especially unthanking. For he who has realized this reality knows that it does outweigh, literally to infinity, all lesser regrets or arguments for negation, and that under all our grumblings there is a subconscious substance of gratitude."

Al of this, however, is a sort of prologue to what I really wanted to write.

I really wanted to write about bliss-- an underlying sense of bliss which has accompanied me all my life, as far as I can remember. Even in the shadow of my general pessimism and melancholy.

More than anything else, this bliss resembles a faint music which can just about be heard, or which comes in and out of hearing, and which underlies everything.

When I look back at my infancy and childhood, I remember a lot of boredom and frustration and other negative emotions-- but all the time, shot through with the sense of bliss underlying everything.

This sense of bliss seems like both an underlying reality and an anticipation, an anticipation of something unspeakably wonderful which throws every other joy and happiness into the shade.

I'm sure this is a common human feeling, even among atheists and secularists-- hence the many social philosophies that beckon us towards a heaven on earth, or which "immanentize the eschaton". Of course, for religious believers, it's a premonition of Heaven, or the Beatific Vision, or some equivalent. In the words of Tennyson, it's:

That far-off, divine event

To which the whole creation moves.

I'm sure that almost all of my readers are thinking of C.S. Lewis and "Joy" right now-- as well they might. There's an obvious resemblance between the "bliss" I'm describing here and the Joy that Lewis has described so well. If there's a difference, it might be that Joy seemed to be a fairly rare experience for Lewis, while the "bliss" I'm describing is more habitual. (I might be wrong about that.) I'll come back to Lewis and Joy later.

Where Lewis had his Joy, Wordsworth had his "spots of time". I'm not saying all these experiences are the same, they certainly resemble each other.

(Honest to God, I didn't use the term "bliss" to differentiate it from Lewis's "Joy". I wasn't even thinking of the Lewis comparison when I started writing this post!)

If this sense of bliss was all anticipation, it might be seen as a curse-- a sort of evolutionary carrot on a string to keep us soldering on through the hardships of life.

But it's not just that. It's as much a bliss in things as they are as it is looking forward to some future happiness. In fact, both seem linked to me: every moment of bliss seems like a beacon towards some ultimate bliss.

C.S. Lewis, in a famous passage that is always worth quoting, lists a few triggers (if I dare use that word?) of Joy: "the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World’s End, the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves."

I have my own list of triggers when it comes to bliss:

The titles of various films, books, albums, etc. For instance, The Road to Wigan Pier or Mornings in the Dark or "There is a Light That Never Goes Out".

Particular words and phrases. ("The dead of night", "The middle of nowhere", "The old, old story..")

The hum of voices on the air, especially in a place in which a current of life is always passing through: a hotel lobby, an airport concourse, etc.. Or the hum of voices in the air at a special event such as an election count centre, a conference, a convention, an open day, or so forth.

Anything to do with the iconography, symbolism, and associations of the cinema; the stylized image of a reel of celluloid, an old-fashioned cinema marquee, a TV presenter addressing the camera in an empty cinema, studio logos, and so on.

Every stylized symbol that is used to evoke a whole atmosphere; such as a lit cityscape at night for the Big City, or a cartoon palm tree for reggae music, or a glitterball for the seventies.

The sounds that water-pipes make; tapping, the whistling of wind, gurgling, and so forth. Along with many other sounds.

Anything that evokes "the drunkenness of things being various", as Louis MacNeice so memorably put it. For instance, the Trivial Pursuit board.

Anything that evokes a tradition; a Halloween bonfire, a Chrismas tree, an Advent wreath, a menorah, etc.

Various idents, such as this one, and this one, (The Carlton one brings back happy memories of my peak cinema-going days, in my early twenties.)

I could go on and on. Indeed, I doubt I'll resist the temptation of adding to this list in the future.

But you get the picture, and I may as well end it there. I hope I have explained, to some extent at least, how I can regard myself as a melancholy pessimist who still exults in the gift of life, the magic of existence itself.

Strangely Unexploited Story Ideas

Another quick post. (I'm working on something else, and, as ever, my mind is popping all over the place.)

I was a keen reader of the UK comic Eagle in the nineties. The most famous serial in Eagle was "Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future". But by the time I came to it, the comic had absorbed any number of other comics, as was the custom in the British comic industry. (When one comic went out of business, its more successful serials migrated to another comic.) So Eagle was a curious mixture of science-fiction, horror, war, and humour.

One less-celebrated serial in Eagle was "Toys of Doom", about a rather unlikeable boy who had an army of mechanical toys who followed his commands. He operated them by remote control. He'd inherited them from a relative, I think. The story itself was a spin-off from a previous serial, as I've learned recently (but didn't know at the time).

I remember I loved "Toys of Doom". I appreciated that its central character was a not particularly sympathetic kid, which is how I felt myself to be at the time (and I was largely right). But I also liked it because it had a premise so full of potential. I can't remember any plot details, but I remember turning to it with pleasure and anticipation every week. 

Here's the thing: it's a great premise for a story. And yet, I can't remember ever encountering a similar story, despite the number of other plot-lines that are regurgitated!

Interesting Survey of Priorities from American Priests

A very quick post..

The 2025 National Survey of Catholic Priests (in the USA) was recently released, based on answers from 1,165 priests. It can be read here.

The graph displaying these priests' pastoral priorities, on page fifteen, makes for very interesting reading.

The top three priorities (in order, and out of fifteen) are: youth and young adult ministry, family formation/marriage preparation, and evangelization.

The bottom three (again in order) are: synodality, LGBTQ community, and access to the Traditional Mass.

If it's reliable, it's a snapshot that complicates both liberal and conservative narratives.

The Fallacy of the Leftist and the Libertarian

 It seems to me that leftists and libertarians both operate from wrong assumptions.

The leftist assumes that the totality of wealth is a big cake that's just there and can be divided up by government. (This isn't literally what they believe, but it's pretty much this.)

The libertarian, for his part, has the opposite belief (again, not literally, but pretty much): that all the wealth in society is created by individuals from their own efforts, ignoring how much everybody owes to infrastructure, civil peace, natural environment, the virtues that have been inculcated by churches and traditional families, and so on. (When I said this on Facebook, once, I was accused of echoing Obama's slogan that "You didn't build that". Well, I think he was right about that much.)

A New Birthday

"[Baptism] is like a birthday because baptism makes us reborn in Christian life. That is why I advise you to teach your children the date of their baptism as a new birthday: that every year they will remember and thank God for this grace of becoming a Christian." Pope Francis.

Thank you, God! Míle buíochas!

This is the day in 1981 when I was baptised in the Holy Spirit church in Ballymun. I was born in October 1977, so there's a bit of a delay there, as you see. Not sure why. I only learned the date of my baptism a few years ago, although I suppose I could have discovered it easily enough if I'd tried. As it happened, a cousin (baptised on the same day) sent me this picture and told me the date.

That's my uncle holding me. I don't know the name of the priest, or the identity of the person on the right.

It's easy for me to believe that we are "primed" for Christianity by nature. I can't remember a time when my imagination was not steeped in images of immersion and regeneration. For instance, I've had recurring dreams about swimming pools for as long as I can remember. But it's not just literal immersion: I'm captivated whenever I read about people who immerse themselves in some particular activity, like chess-players or extremely prolific artists of any kind. I love all immersive environments, such as swimming pools and cinemas.

Similarly, the motif of regeneration, rebirth, has never been far from my mind-- conscious and unconscious. For instance, the title of the William Shatner album The Transformed Man speaks to me like poetry. (Yes, that's the album that features his spoken-word rendition of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".)

I think this is one of the reasons I love snow so much. A landscape transformed by snow is like an image of Christian regeneration: made new, but still what it was.

Favourite Poems: "Sad Steps" by Philip Larkin

On the night of a full moon, a Philip Larkin poem that has grown and grown on me over the years. I think of this poem every time I see a full moon (although the poem doesn't actually describe the moon as full, which I've somehow just realized). 

I'm not a fan of vulgarity in poetry, but the vulgarity in the first line of this poem earns its place for all sorts of reasons. It's a very earthy beginning for a poem with such an etheral subject, which supplies contrast. It also describes a relatable situation. And it rhymes.

The poem appeals to me partly for autobiographical reasons. For most of my teens I needed glasses but never got them, out of self-consciousness. I couldn't see the moon for many of my formative years. When I finally got glasses and could see it, its brilliance took me aback, and it did indeed seem "laughable and "preposterous", as Larkin puts it-- almost cartoonish.

The central idea of the poem-- the linking of the moon and childhood-- is brilliant. It seems surreal to me both that my childhood is utterly and irretrievably gone, and also that other people are living through childhood right now-- a childhood just as real as mine was. It's the sort of strangeness that can only be evoked by poetry. 

I don't think the poem is perfect. In all honesty, I think the second and third stanzas are poor, aside from the line There's something laughable about this. In fact, the line Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below seems positively awkward and tongue-tripping to me. But what do I know, and who am I to criticize Larkin? It's just my opinion, man.

On the other hand, the fourth stanza is miraculous. Lozenge of love! Medallion of art! is a brilliant evocation of the moon's surreal purity. (It reminds me of Yeats's description of the moon:

So arrogantly pure, a child might think

It can be murdered with a spot of ink.)

But even these lines pale compared to my favourite line in the poem: Oh wolves of memory! I'm not exactly sure what Larkin was trying to convey by that phrase, but to me, it suggests the ruthless and ravening nature of memory, how it penetrates to your very core at a moment you're not expecting it.

"Wolves of memory" is one of those phrases that, in my view, proclaim the genius of the poet. I know I wouldn't be able to come up with such a phrase in a hundred years. Encountering such pure inspiration is both sobering and exhilarating. It's the sort of line that literally gives me goosebumps.

I also like the fact that Larkin spells out the meaning of the poem in the concluding stanzas. He doesn't take refuge in obliqueness, the tactic of most modern and measly poets.

On a more technical note, the shortness and flatness of the line: "One shivers slightly, looking up there" is very effective. It adds variation to the metre, but also transitions from the crescendo in the middle of the poem to the rather more subdued and prosaic ending.

Anyway, here is the text:

Sad Steps

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.

Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There’s something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate—
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can’t come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

Happy Bonfire Night!

As I've often said, I love traditions. I've even created a whole blog about them, although whether it will ever get off the ground is another matter...

Tonight is Guy Fawkes' Night, or Bonfire Night. Two friends in different parts of England reassure me that there are fireworks galore. I'm glad to hear that.

I'm intrigued that Bonfire Night is never mentioned in the British media (I check the BBC news website several times a day, and have done so for years) and yet it's still widely observed.

In previous years, some commenters on this blog have suggested that Guy Fawkes Night is too anti-Catholic to celebrate. But surely the anti-Catholic aspect is purely historical at this stage. And even when it wasn't...well, religion seems to me like a good thing to get worked up about, whatever side you're on. It's religious indifference I don't understand.

From an Irish perspective, Guy Fawkes' Night always seemed doubly exotic to me. It didn't exist in my lived environment, but it also didn't exist in the American media that gave us most of our representations of everyday life, then as now. Nothing is more exotic than something which is just one step away from the familiar. (It recalls to me that uncanny line in The Everlasting Man by Chesterton, about finding an unknown room in your own house-- an image that is endlessly evocative to me.) 

I was a raging anglophile from my boyhood, and most English things seemed familiar, but Guy Fawkes Night was totally unknown.

A few weeks ago, I'd planned to write an article on Guy Fawkes' Night for my traditions blog. That never transpired, but I did find this interesting academic article on the history of the commemoration in Ireland. You need a JSTOR registration to read it, though. Interestingly enough, at one point the tradition was more keenly observed in Ireland (although obviously not among the majority) than in England, where it was believed to have gone into decline! Later on, it was discouraged here by the Ascendancy establishment itself, eager to avoid tensions.

Written the next day: According to Bruce Charlton, the festivities were livelier than ever before, at least in Newcastle...five hours of fireworks. How I love to hear that! But he does mention that the Guy is rarely burnt now, which seems a shame.

(I often wonder if Mr. Fawkes had any influence on the now-ubiquitious use of "guy" to mean "man"?)

Happy All Saints Day!

A list of my favourite saints and possible future saints, that I jotted down recently, to remind myself to pray for their intercession.  Some are old favourites, some I've only discovered recently.

Are there any of your own favourites that I've left out here?

John Paul II

The children of Fatima.

Maximilian Kolbe.

Solanus Casey.

Gemma Galgani.

Edel Quinn.

John Bradburne.

G.K. Chesterton.

Bernadette Soubirous.

Leonard La Rue.

Padre Pio.

John Henry Newman.

Cardinal Manning.

Mother Teresa.

Matt Talbot.

Mary Aikenhead.

Edmund Campion.

Robert Southwell.

Miguel Pro.

Elizabeth of the Trinity.

John Fisher.

Oliver Plunkett.

Dorothy Day.

Fr. John Sullivan.

Fulton Sheen.

Fr. Chuck Gallagher.

Fr. James Cullen.

Rock Shandy in Blackrock

Rock shandy is an Irish fizzy drink. It came about when fizzy orange was mixed with fizzy lemon, in a pub in Blackrock in south county Dublin. It's a personal favourite of mine.

You can read its interesting origin story here.

Yesterday I had dinner in Zambrero in Blackrock. When the girl asked me what drink I'd like, I saw a rocky shandy in the fridge and opted for that. When I asked her if she knew rock shandy was invented in Blackrock, she didn't. (To be fair, she obviously grew up a long, long way from Blackrock.)

It pleases me to an absurd degree to drink a fizzy drink which is not only distinctive to Ireland, but to a particular part of Ireland...and to drink it in the very place it was invented, where it's simply sold as a drink like any other!

(Also, I love the word "fizzy".)

I Hate Bank Holidays

Tomorrow is a bank holiday in Ireland. All my life I've hated bank holidays-- well, at least since leaving school.

I hate the whole bank holiday atmosphere. Instead of reducing stress it just seems to increase it. Everything around you seems to be overloaded, crowded, groaning under the weight of the holiday-makers. Even if this doesn't directly affect you, even if you stay at home, the atmosphere still seeps in.

Public holidays are different. I like St. Patrick's Day and the new St. Bridget's Day because they're about something. Bank holidays have no soul, no personality.

Because I'm a social conservative, I've spent about fifteen years (if not more) complaining about the 24-hour society.

I'm beginning to realize this was me fooling myself all along. I actually like the 24-hour society. I like the idea of the "city that never sleeps". One of my favourite things about hotels is that there's always someone on reception, at any time of the day or night.

I hated Sundays, growing up in eighties Ireland. I hated the whole atmosphere. They were not joyous. They were desolate and depressing.

I do not fantasize about little Tuscan villages where everybody stops to have lunch together and life follows the rhythms of nature. I like cities.

I liked my experience of America where everything is open much longer than in Ireland and where shutting up shop isn't the solemn ritual it is here, requiring twenty announcements and increasingly dirty looks from the staff.

My least favourite part of Christmas is when everything closes and everybody retreats to their private worlds. I like the public aspect of Christmas.

Yes, I love difference and I hate sameness, that's true. But, even in a 24-hour society, there are still big differences between early morning, late night, and so on. Everything isn't open all the time.

G.K. Chesterton was not a Sabbatarian and was quite critical of Sabbatarianism, considering it puritanical. He also thought Sunday trading laws unfairly favoured big businesses. When I discovered this, it bothered me a bit and I thought it was one of the things I disagreed with Chesterton about. I've changed my mind.

This blog post is a confession, not an argument.

I won't have much internet access over the stupid bank holiday, so apologies if I don't respond to any comments right away.

Favourite Poems: The Owl by Tennyson

Tennyson's early work "The Owl" is a delightful vignette, the poetic equivalent to a miniature in art. Even though some of the lines puzzle me (why is the stream dumb? why is the sail whirring?), its rustic simplicity never fails to please. It's both matter-of-fact and idyllic at once.

I read once, in a biography of Tennyson, that he was remarkable for his observation of nature, and invariably accurate when he described it in his poetry. Not that this little poem would have required much from those observational powers, I'm sure.

My favourite passage from this poem is undoubtedly: "When merry milkmaids click the latch and rarely smells the new-mown hay". It's a glimpse of rural life, not only as idyllic, but as Arcadian and blissful. And the sound of "merry milkmaids clink the latch" is very pleasing.

Funnily enough, I always remembered the refrain of this poem as: "The wise owl in the belfry sits", not "the white owl". Honestly, I think I prefer "wise"!

The poem is obviously heavily dependent on repetition, and is all the better for it.

When cats run home and light is come,

And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,

And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

Clondalkin Memories

(A note before I get going: I've always liked titles in the form of "X Memories" or "Y Memories", so just writing a blog post under the title "Clondalkin Memories" gives me great pleasure.)

As I've said in previous blog posts, my sense of geography is catastrophic. I've been a Dubliner all my life but I've managed to be in Dublin while not being of Dublin. After five decades in the capital city, I have less knowledge of Dublin than many recent immigrants. It's ridiculous.

So many Dublin places have been nothing but names to me, all my life. I never really knew anything about Clondalkin and I still don't, aside from what I'm going to write here. I know it's name in Irish is Cluain Dolcáin but I don't know what that means. Nevertheless I lived in Clondalkin for two periods of my life, both of them fairly brief.

I had a colleague and friend who lived there. I would socialize with him. Through this socializing, I met a friend of his who lived in the area and had a room to rent, so I took it. Later on, I actually lived in his own house while he was living abroad.

The first thing that struck me about Clondalkin was how far away it seemed. It's only ten miles from UCD, where I've always worked, but the bus journey always seemed epic. In fact, I was often late for work during my first spell in Clondalkin, even when I took the first bus.

The bus journey towards Clondalkin also seemed long, but it had another property which is, in fact, the thing I most associate with Clondalkin. It seemed serious. The further you moved from Dublin city centre to Clondalkin, the more serious and business-like the buildings became. They were bigger, squarer, dustier and more worn-looking (even when they seemed only a few decades old). Many were made of brick. They seemed more masculine. They weren't promising a good time, like the pubs and shops in the city centre, or making any cultural claims, like the various historic buildings also in the city centre. There were there to work, and everything about them seemed solid and hefty. It was pleasing in one way, but somewhat austere. To think of it now, it's a bit of a Yorkshire vibe.

There was an actual quarry near the house where I was staying for my second period in Clondalkin, and also a large building (with a huge yard) that had a plaster model of a tap (or faucet) extruding from its front wall. Obviously a plumbing firm or something like that. The whole building, and the plaster tap, were pleasantly grubby and run-down.

Now I think about it, I have to distinguish between different sorts of building the bus would pass on its way to and through Clondalkin. There were certainly warehouses and offices, but there were also more inviting buildings: chippers, restaurants, and pubs. I was especially interested in the pubs, since I thought they had a distinctive "coach-house" look; long, inn-like pubs with hanging signs outside and gilt lettering above the door. I remember noticing this and wondering whether anyone would agree with me, whether this was something in objective reality or just something I was imagining.

One restaurant in Clondalkin is called Boss Hogg's. (I've just discovered it's still in business). As you may know, Boss Hogg was the rather cartoonish antagonist of the Dukes of Hazzard show from the eighties, which I never saw in my childhood but discovered much later. Funnily enough, Boss Hogg did have a tavern in the TV show, but it was called The Boar's Nest. So it seemed rather perverse to call a restaurant Boss Hogg's.

The shopfront of Boss Hogg's looked quite faded and timeworn, and that brings me to a strange thing about Dublin suburbs, and my reaction to them. Each one is linked, in my mind, to a particular period in pop culture. (I mean International pop culture, since Ireland doesn't really have a pop culture of its own.) I've been vaguely aware of this for decades, but only realized it fully when writing this blog post. Somehow, the aura of a particular period's pop culture seems to hang over each Dublin suburb, perhaps linked to whenever it had the most young people in recent times. The Dukes of Hazzard was an eighties show so, in a strange way, Clondalkin seems like an eighties suburb to me. 

But let me get back to the distinction between different sorts of building on the journey to Clondalkin. On the one hand, there were the pubs that looked like coach-houses and the vaguely Victorian-looking office buildings. On the other, there were modern, sleek, glass-fronted corporate buildings that were lit up at night. Some of these were pretty big and formidable-looking. One of them (a showroom for Suzuki or Honda or something) announced its name on a huge red glowing sign. The sight of it always made me feel like I was coming into Mordor.

Everything in Clondalkin seemed bigger and further away and potentially hostile, at least at night. There was a strong sense of foreignness, of being at odds in one's environment.

During my first residence in Clondalkin, I went to an all-night party in the house where I was staying, one that left a fairly big impression on me. There were only about ten of us there (including my landlady and my colleague), but it was animated. There was a lot of drinking.

One of the guests at the party was a born-again Christian. The very first thing he started talking to me about (even before any-getting to know you pleasantries) was a coffee table for which, in his view, our hostess had paid a scandalous price. He could get it much cheaper elsewhere, he said. I was later told that this was his passion-- finding bargains. That and predicting the Last Days, which (as he told me) were imminent. I think he said they would come within ten years, certainly more than twenty.

As the evening wore on, the conversation turned to religion. I can remember one woman, who had attained the further reaches of intoxiation, saying slowly and repeatedly: "I think it's all a load of b*****."

My friend and colleague was challenged as to his own beliefs. I'll always remember his response. (He, too, was comprehensively drunk.) He raised his arms in the air and said, with a huge grin on his face: "I believe Jesus Christ is my saviour."

I was surprised as I'd known this guy for many years and I didn't expect he had the faintest tinge of religious belief. The way he made his proclamation was strangely impressive. As drunk as he was, as ironically as he spoke, there seemed to be a core of conviction in his words-- or, at least, a lingering loyalty to Christianity.

The name of Jesus Christ is extraordinarily powerful. Even invoked in jest, or something close to jest, it seems to change the whole atmosphere of a place or situation.

I stayed in the house that nght. As I was leaving very early the next morning, I heard my name being called and looked up. The born-again Christian was waving goodbye to me from an upstairs window.

I took a bus from Clondalkin to Dublin city centre. I can remember looking at a playing field along the way, and specifically at the goal-posts. (As with most goal-posts in Ireland, they were of the GAA variey, which resemble rugby goal-posts.) For some reason, staring at those goal-posts, I realized that belief in God had become a possibility for me. It had been much on my mind recently, but I couldn't see my way out of agnosticism. Suddenly, I could. It would be hard, or impossible, to explain why. It was as though innumerable reasoning processes had been going on under the surface of my mind, and suddenly belief got the upper hand. (This was just one moment on my long journey from agnosticism to faith.)

Perhaps I should have left that story for the end of the post. Here are some less dramatic stories from my time in Clondalkin.

Once I got lost on the Red Cow roundabout (or junction, or interchange). It's named after a nearby hotel/tavern. I've actually just realized now that the current Red Cow is named after the original Red Cow, which was a pub. Apparently Brendan Behan used to say that everybody who lived beyond the Red Cow was a culchie (i.e., a hick). Of course Dublin has greatly expanded since then.

One day, for whatever reason, I got off my bus at an earlier stop than usual and found myself ensnared in the Red Cow roundabout, and the area around it. (It wasn't all concrete roads and bridges I was navigating-- at one point I found myself trapped in a series of connected back gardens, and had to climb over a wall.) It took me at least an hour and felt ridiculous, like I was a suburban Robinson Crusoe. It all added to the sense I constantly harboured, that Clondalkin was an environment always ready to turn hostile at one wrong turn. (The time I got lost in Corkagh Park desk night also added to this.)

The first time I lived in Clondalkin, I was sharing a house with my landlady. The second time, I was (initially) alone in the house. I honestly think the first night I spent alone in that house was the first night I spend alone in any house, hard as that might be to believe.

It was a very spooky experience. I had heard of a house "settling" before-- the process by which woods and other materials contract as the temperature falls, causing all kinds of noises. But I had no idea how dramatic this could be. It really did sound like somebody was in the house with me, moving about. My imagination was going wild as I went to sleep that night.

By the time of my second stay in Clondalkin, I was a practicing Catholic. While I was there, I went to a little church called Knockmitten, which looked more like a school building than a church (and perhaps it had been). I have become fascinated by the name, over the years, as the place-name Knockmitten only seems to apply to the church itself, not to anything else in the area.

At this time, I was building myself up in my mind as a Knight Crusader for the One True Faith, and Knockmitten church seemed disconcertingly genteel to me. Didn't these people know there was a culture war on? Apparently not. It had a very "tea and biscuits" atmosphere, like a rural church where the whole community goes to Mass on a Sunday, and nobody pays very much attention to the homily. (There are a few churches like this in Dublin. The Margaret Ball Chapel in Santry is another.)

The priest in Knockmitten during my time there was a short, bald, elderly guy who smiled a lot. The homily that stands out in my memory is one where he named John XXIII as his favourite Pope. I can't remember the reasons he advanced, but I really got the impression this priest was nostalgic for the glory days of Vatican II. I was fascinated by this preference. It was hard to believe anyone could prefer John XXIII to John-Paul II, for instance. Even at the height of my militancy, I felt a certain envy (even admiration) towards anyone who could cling to a sunny nineteen-sixties spirituality in the twenty-first century.

Clondalkin also had a Mormon temple, on which I frequently gazed with great interest as I passed. On another occasion, as I was leaving the house, I heard a lot of African voices in an upstairs room of a neighbouring house, singing something about being washed in the blood of Jesus.

Clondalkin's most famous feature in the roundtower. I only ever saw it from a distance. For some reason I always assumed it was a modern replica of a roundtower. But no, it's a genuine historical roundtower.

This blog post has described my Clondalkin. Please forgive its length. How well does it fit the real Clondalkin? That's a form of question I'm increasingly asking myself these days-- not only of places, but of every sort of experience.

Favourite Poems: Forget Not Yet The Tried Intent

I've decided to start a new series on this blog, a series in which I feature some of my favourite poems, and comment on them as appropriately.

The first is "Forget Not Yet" by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503-1542). Wyatt is the earliest English language poet whose work I enjoy. (This doesn't include various ballads and anonymous pieces).

There isn't really a whole lot to say about this poem. The pathos and vulnerability of the simple refrain "Forget not yet" gives it much of its power. I like the way every stanza ends with a dying fall. I especially like the rhythm and cumulative force of the stanza that begins: "Forget not yet the great essays..." I also like the way the poem 

The poem has a simplicity and directness which is all-too-rare for the Elizabethan era. Those Elizabethans really liked to gussy things up.

I've always assumed this is a poem addressed to a beloved lady, an example of courtly love. Might it be some kind of religious or political allegory instead? Who knows? I've never read any commentary on this poem. But it seems most likely to be a simple love poem.

Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant;
My great travail so gladly spent,
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know, since whan
The suit, the service, none tell can;
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways;
The painful patience in denays,
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet, forget not this,
How long ago hath been and is
The mind that never meant amiss;
Forget not yet.

Forget not then thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved;
Forget not this.

The Innocence of Traditions

Readers may recall that I revived my Traditions Traditions Traditions! blog recently. It hasn't exactly taken off. There have been a total of seven comments on the whole blog, and they were all on a single post about garden gnomes, seven years ago.

I've often written about tradition on this blog, too. For instance, in this blog post from 2015. I'm quite pleased with this pasage from back then:

But what do I mean by tradition? I mean it in a broad sense; but in a narrow sense, too. I mean it especially in the most vulgar and obvious sense, the sense that makes many people roll their eyes. I mean it in the "Ye Olde Shoppe" sense. I mean it in the 'warm fuzzies' sense.

I mean Halloween, confetti at weddings, the Angelus bells being broadcast on RTE in Ireland, blowing out birthday candles, the FA Cup final, the Budweiser Clydesdales, white smoke at Papal elections (a relatively recent innovation, by the way), using the feminine pronoun for ships, bishops in the House of Lords, Corpus Christi processions, Valentine's Day cards, men proposing to women, poetry that rhymes, terrace chants, James Bond, cloth caps, the Two Ronnies Christmas special, the Oberammergau passion play, singing on the last night of the Proms, Guy Fawkes night, popcorn at the cinema, Toby jugs, the Late Late Toy Show, and so on.

Yes, my love of tradition absolutely comes down to "the warm fuzzies". It's nostalgic; it's sentimental; it's corny.

I've been thinking a lot about traditions recently and why they appeal to me so much. As the title of the blog post suggests, I think a lot of it comes down to innocence.

There is something very child-like about traditions. They appeal to the child in us all, and the participation of children always brings them to life in a special way.

Traditions are received, and for children almost everything is received. Nearly everything is a hand-me-down for a child; language, social cues, politeness, everything. This is the case for adults, too, but it's more obviously true in the case of children. Kids are learning and copying literally all the time. They're like the wet cement that a cat's paws are imprinted in for decades to come.

And perhaps that's also part of the appeal of tradition; tradition is humble. Traditions aren't original or creative or individual. They're not supposed to be. You put up a Christmas tree or light a bonfire at Halloween or eat popcorn at the movies because other people have done the same thing before. That's the whole point.

I remember watching a documentary a good few years ago-- there was a vogue for this particular sort of documentary at the time, "the hundred best TV moments", that sort of thing. At one point, some talking head was marvelling over David Bowie's love of Christmas. I obviously can't remember his exact words, but he said something like this: "It's so strange and wonderful that this super-cool, decadent artiste would love something as goofy and lame as Christmas." I'm not sure that Bowie did love Christmas. I can't find any evidence of this beyond the duet with Bing Crosbie, which he apparently did to please his mother. But the point is still well-made. Tradition is anti-cool, anti-cynicism, anti-iconoclast.

As well as innocence, there's something inherently social about traditions. It's very possible to have a completely personal tradition-- in fact, that's an interesting subject in its own right-- but most traditions require other people. People put Halloween decorations and Easter decorations and St. Patrick's Day decorations in their windows and gardens so that everybody can see them. People give stuff away on holidays-- chocolates, little gifts, that sort of thing. We need other people to play along.

Ultimately, much of my own fascination with tradition is irreducibly personal and based on my own experiences. For whatever reason, my memories of various traditions have a sort of luminosity about them-- a glow, a magic, a sense of wonder. There's often a bittersweet element to this, since traditions are so often disappointing or underwhelming. And yet the very underwhelmingness also gives the memory a certain poignancy, in the manner of every feeble but gallant effort-- like a newborn baby's hand clasping an adult's finger, or the very fragile flame of a candle sputtering in the air. (I associate Easter, especially, with poignantly feeble traditions.)

Holiday Mode

As I've mentioned before, I'm addicted to the website TV Tropes. Recently, I discovered this page: "Holiday Mode". It mostly describes how various video games incorporate changes to reflect a holiday or occasion in the real world.

I read about this maybe a week ago and, for some reason, it's never been too far from my mind since then.

I don't play video games, but the phenomenon described is something that interests me very much. That is, an occasion or event that pervades many different spheres of life, or even "levels of reality"-- because a computer game is really a different level of reality.

A holiday, tradition or festival has really taken off when it's not confined to the actual celebration-- when it's just there, in the background, in the air.

Similarly, a holiday, tradition or festival seems more real, more authentic, when it's developed its own aesthetic that can, in a way, float free of the actual celebration.

And what's true of holidays seems true of everything; people, groups, nationalities, sports, genres...

The more of these "aesthetics" there are in the world, the better. Conversely, for anything to lack such an aesthetic is to be regretted.

I'm always especially interested in something that be present, and perhaps even especially present, when it's not the focus-- when something else is happening. For instance, holiday atmospheres or settings in a video game, where the player is presumably mostly interested in playing the game.

It seems, when I think about such things, that I'm on the verge of something very important, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Certainly the notion of something being on the edge of consciousness has always been hugely important to me. I've had a lifelong fascination with background music played in public places, the music that nobody is focused on but is just there.

Similarly, I've had a lifelong (or almost lifelong) fascination with every aesthetic that can be summoned with a single image. For instance; the way the whole "reggae" atmosphere can be evoked by the silhoutte of palm trees; or the way the whole "cinema" atmosphere can be evoked by the image of a roll of celluloid; or the way the way Christmas can be evoked by a single string of tinself. Here, somehow, I feel we approach something very profound, something deeply signficant to human happiness, though I'm unable to explain exactly why.

A Good Point by Laura Perrins

In this discussion with Tim Stanley, Laura Perrins makes an excellent point: "I remember when these woke guys and girls (very much girls) were in university and they were doing their gender studies and their women's studies, and I very clearly remember right-wing people going "Oh, don't worry about that, they'll never find a job with their gender studies, they'll all be unemployed. How wrong were they? These Gender Studies people, the Women's Studies people, they they all run HR for a start..."

It's a point which I've never seen made before, but which needs to be made.

Even now, after so many reasons not to do so, people take political correctness as some kind of joke or eccentricity, something removed from the "real world". It's absolutely not.

Similiarly to the misguided confidence Laura Perrins reports, one often hears people make statements such as this one: "All these woke students with their safe spaces and their trigger warnings, they'll never be able to survive in the real world..."

Oh yes, they will.

Why? Because they know what they're doing is a game, a tactic. They know the university is an artificial space and they know its boundaries. They are very shrewd and when they leave university they will know how to play the game in the jobs market-- until they have the power to influence things themselves.

They're not really looking for protection from traumatic triggers. They're looking to silence their opponents by weaponizing victimhood, and they are getting very good at it.

It's long past time to stop being naive about political correctness. The lunatic fringe of one decade is the state-imposed orthodoxy of the next. We've seen this pattern so often, how can we keep falling for it?

Division and Unity

One of the things about contemporary discourse that I find quite tiresome is the assumption that unity is always better than division. For instance, in statements like this: "I prefer to concentrate on the things that unite us rather than the things that divide us".

Surely unity and division are both desirable aspects of society, in different contexts? One might be desirable in one situation, the other in another situation. I realize this seems a very obvious point. But then, why is the "unity" card always held to trump the "division" card, when it comes to rhetoric and speechifying?

In a sermon some time ago, Bishop Barron made the point that a society needs both bridges and walls. Surely this is obvious?

In fact, walls seem more fundamental than bridges. Let's imagine all the bridges in a country disappeared overnight. (We'll mercifully assume nobody was crossing them at the time.) That would present challenges, to be sure.

But imagine if all the walls disappeared. Calamity! (Let's even suppose that nobody is flattened by falling roofs, somehow. Even then, it would be calamitous.)

Think about how monotonous and depressing a society without divisions would really be. Communal living quarters...unisex bathrooms...it sounds a bit like the remade Battlestar Galactica without the fun parts.

But, even if you don't take it to the point of absurdity, the idea of a society without divisions is pretty dreary. Why is the word "diversity" waved like it's magical and prestigious, while "division" is stigmatised? They mean pretty much the same thing.

I do value unity. For instance, on this blog, I've written about my appreciation for big public events like the World Cup or a general election. (I've especially written about my memories of the 1990 World Cup, a unique example of national unity.)

But these special occasions are only special because they're exceptional. If we had nothing but unity all the time, they'd be completely unremarkable. As Shakespeare famously said: "If all the year were playing holidays to sport would be as tedious as to work." I'd actually like significantly more big public occasions. But they'd still be exceptional.

Unity seems much more meaningful when it's built across divisions, rather than obliterating them. Whenever I've been to a pro-life march, I'm always very pleased by the various county and local banners that are carried.

One of the most famous parts of Homer's Iliad is the "catalogue of ships", which lists all the different contingents which travelled to Troy to recapture Helen. It's mind-numbingly dull to read (just like the genealogies in the Bible), but it does make the point that the war is a very big deal-- that it united all the different Greek city-states.

And, of course, division is often valuable in itself. Is a monolithic society really a good thing?

Being a nationalist, I do think it's better for a nation to have a large degree of homogeneity when it comes to basics such as ethnicity and language. Even here, though, I don't think a nation should be a monolith. (And it rarely is, as we're always being reminded.)

As a sort of postcript, I've always disliked that rather dull ballad, "On the One Road", 

We're on the one road
Sharing the one load
We're on the road to God knows where
We're on the one road
It may be the wrong road
But we're together now who cares
North men, South men, comrades all
Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Donegal
We're on the one road swinging along
Singing a soldier's song.

Doesn't really make the heart leap, does it? National unity should only really apply to times of national emergency. Once the emergency is past, let a thousand flowers bloom and the fireworks recommence. That's how I feel, anyway.

A Time to Mourn

A good friend of mine who reads this blog has had a major bereavement.

In sympathy, I'm turning the blog's colours to black, and I'm going to pause blogging for a while as a mark of respect.

May perpetual light shine upon my friend's loved one.

A Bit of Fry and Laurie

Today I found myself thinking about this sketch from "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" , a series which ran from 1989 to 1995. I can't easily find when this sketch dated from.

Basically, it's about a guy who goes to a psychiatrist and loudly announces he's mad and wants to be cured. The psychiatrist is sceptical until the client mentions, in passing, that he writes letters to the newspapers. The psychiatrist picks up some newspapers in his office and asks him if he wrote two (very banal) letters which appeared in them, to which the client cheerfully admits. The psychiatrist then asks him his chest size for a straitjacket (much to the client's satisfaction).

I find this funny because I've had a longstanding fascination with letters to the editor. For a good few years I was an assiduous writer of them. I'm rather proud of my letter-writing days because it's proof (in cold print) that I was pushing against political correctness and other progressive manias when I was relatively young and when such pushback was less common than it is now. (They were mostly written in my thirties. I am now exiting my forties.)

Someone who worked on a letters page once told me that she was, indeed, convinced that many letter-writers were mad.  I don't think mine were missives of madness. But then, I wouldn't, would I?

By the end of my letter-writing days, I had a very good publication rate. I'd guess three-quarters of my letters (or even more) got published, in national newspapers. Of course, I don't know how many letters they get, so maybe there's nothing special about this.

My days of writing letters to the editor were, possibly, a good training in concision of expression. People would often mention them to me and sometimes I'd get correspondence from strangers (always positive).

I'd imagine it's much more difficult to have a letter published in a British national newspaper, given the population is so much larger. I did send a couple of letters to a British film magazine, but those ones didn't get published.

I also enjoy reading the letters pages in archived newspapers.

Once, when talking to a colleague, I expressed disappointment that my letters had never provoked replies along the lines of: "Your correspondent Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh is a complete idiot". He very wittily replied: "Well, it's like phoning for the fire brigade. Everyone presumes somebody else has done it already."

Friday the Thirteenth on my Traditions! Traditions! Traditions! blog.

Longtime readers might remember the Traditions! Traditions! Traditions! blog I set up a few years ago (in 2018, actually), and then promptly abandoned after a few posts.

My idea was for a blog about every sort of tradition, just for the fun of it. No pontificating, moralizing, flights of (attempted) lyricism, kvetching, or anything like that. Just a chatty, magazine-style blog, like Snopes.com (the urban legends blog) before it went all liberal and propagandistic.

I've decided to revive it, and I've begun with a post on Friday the thirteenth (considered as a tradition).

Yes, I know it's not Friday the thirteenth, or anywhere near it. The next occurrence of that date isn't until February. What the heck.

Read it here, if you like.

Belfield

I work in the library in University College Dublin, on the Belfield campus. (Its main campus is Belfield, though it also has a campus in Blackrock and various satellites in other places, even far abroad.)

Belfield is a large greenfield site. The architecture is sixties brutalist, there are lots of trees, several lakes, and a lot of statues. UCD moved here from the city centre in 1964. I've read that one of the biggest champions of the move was John Charles McQuaid, the Archbishop of Dublin, who has become a symbol of everything that is bad and reactionary in Catholic Ireland, but who won praise from many surprising quarters on individual issues.

Belfield is in Dublin 4, the most famous postcode in Dublin, which has been synonymous with the liberal intelligentsia for decades. (RTE, the national broadcaster, is also located there.)

There were various landed estates around Dublin 4 in the past. Belfield was one. Montrose (the plot of land on which RTE stands) was another.

Here's something I find very interesting. I have spent almost twenty-five years working in Belfield, and I've noticed that hardly anybody ever uses the name in Belfield itself.

You might not think that statement deserves italics, but I do.

Nobody ever talks about Belfield, only about UCD. Belfield is only ever really used in a historic context (the move to Belfield), or to distinguish between the Belfield campus and other parts of UCD.

Interstingly, people do use Montrose as a metonym (or stand-in) for RTE, nearly always in a snarky tone. But they don't use Belfield as a metonym for UCD.

How people use place-names is very interesting to me. For instance, it's fairly well-known that, after independence, various Irish placenames were changed for patriotic reason. Queen's County became Laois, and the harbour settlement of Kingstown became Dún Laoghaire (often pronounced Dunleary).

However, although Bagenalstown in Carlow had its name changed to Muine Bheag, the change never stuck. Nobody calls it Muine Bheag. Everybody calls it Bagenalstown. I've just read that there was a plebsicite to change it back in 1975. The "Yes" vote won comfortably, but there wasn't enough of a turnout to reach the threshold.

So why did all those other placenames change, but not Bagenalstown?

In a similar way, I've often wondered why, long after the West had been Christianized, the names of the days of week continued to honour pagan gods. Why was there no attempt to Christianize them, or indeed, to Christianize the months of the year?

I'm rather glad there wasn't. I like throwbacks. But it makes me curious.

March for Jesus

I was on a bus passing through Dublin city centre today when I saw a march leaving the Garden of Remembrance. As there were a lot of red banners, and I'd seen posters for an "anti-racism" march this week, I assumed that was what it was all about. But when I looked closer, I saw the name "Jesus" on the banners. I hadn't heard about this.

I got off the bus and joined it. It went from the Garden of Remembrance to Stephen's Green. There were several big screens, a lot of Christian rock music, prayers, speeches, and so on. RTE, Ireland's national broadcaster-- which rarely inflates figures when it comes to any religious event-- put the crowd at ten thousand. That seems right. There were people of every kind there. The event certainly had an evangelical flavour but there were also plenty of Catholic symbols on display.

It was great to see, and great to join in. To echo a phrase that was on many peoples' lips: praise Jesus!