Rural Ireland is a sinister place. On the surface, small villages are fantastic. A sense of community, everyone knowing everyone else, and sometimes, if you're lucky, a real pride of place and a sense of shared history that binds people together.
But there is a sinister side to village life.
The very 'shared history' that binds people can tear them apart, and 'community' can quickly turn to pure parochialism when something goes wrong. Our own village has a 200 year old feud between neighbouring families - one of whose ancestors shopped the other to the local squire for republican activities in the 1700s, causing his execution. Every time there is drink taken the feud reappears.
There are three Irish writers who have illustrated this dichotomy beautifully; Martin McDonagh, in his brilliant Leenane trilogy; Pat McCabe, in the Butcher Boy and other work; and John B. Keane, the legendary playwright and raconteur whose epic work The Field showed off rural Ireland at its darkest; a village divided by greed, power, corruption and parochialism.
Keane's home town of Listowel, Co Kerry, this week became the epicentre of a scandal involving a sexual assault and a town divided between victim and accused. While everyone is innocent until proven guilty - especially in such a serious case, where a man's reputation will be destroyed if wrongly accused - the accused in this case, Danny Foley, has been convicted of a serious and violent sexual assault. But his conviction, with a unanimous jury and a hefty sentence (for this type of offence) did not convince his supporters.
50 of them, mostly middle aged and older men, queued up to shake his hand after he was convicted. They included his local parish priest.
This procession of shame took place in the courtroom where the victim was sitting, appalled and humiliated. Although her anonymity has been respected by the media, as is their legal obligation, Listowel is a small place, and the whole town knows her identity.
The town is reportedly split between her family and that of the convicted sex offender, whose parish priest said he "doesn't have an abusive bone in his body". Well, I'm sorry, Fr Sheehy, but he does. A court of law has found that he does. And by claiming otherwise, you are accusing the victim of wasting police time, perjury, and slander.
She is being shunned; refused service in pubs and shops as if she were the criminal.
While there are other issues here about treatment of women and our attitudes towards sexual crime, the clear implication of this case is that our history over the past few years - Magdalen laundries, clerical and other sexual abuse, domestic violence and terrorism all kept secret to look after 'our own' - have taught us absolutely nothing about what it means to be a society.
The shock and disgust apparent at the revelations of the Murphy and Cloyne investigations into religious institutions can be no more than posturing, if we have not taken the lessons of the reports to heart; there can be no more turning a blind eye, no more defence of the indefensible and no more defiance of the rule of law where it happens to apply to somebody we know. Bishop Donal Murray has (finally) acknowledged this last rule and resigned, but only after a fight.
The banking and political scandals that have been rocking this country - 'Seanie' Fitz, 'Fingers' Fingleton and their blatant disregard for the law, and a number of corrupt politicians who continue to get elected despite defrauding their constituents and everybody else - are a less emotive but just as fundamental symptom of our appalling lack of perspective when it comes to application of the law, and of basic moral standards.
This is a small country; everyone knows everyone. That's what makes Ireland a welcoming and warm country, but it's also what made it corrupt, immoral and backward when Keane wrote The Field.
Whatever our developments over the past few years, cases like this one in Listowel show that this Ireland has not disappeared.
UPDATE: The priest has resigned http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/kerry-priest-who-shook-hand-of-sex-offender-leaves-parish-438821.html
Showing posts with label rural Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rural Ireland. Show all posts
Friday, December 18, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Catholic Church in Ireland: the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end?
After reading Theo Dorgan's thought-provoking piece in today's Irish Times, something struck me.
The horror and sorrow of those who trusted the Church at these latest revelations, and the bishops' sadly inadequate reactions to them, is not present among my generation.
To those of us who grew up in the 1990s, this is completely normal.
We do not know a Church that engenders fear. We do not even know a Church that engenders respect. We know only a Church that engenders disgust, anger and the desire for retribution and the toppling from pedestals of idols who have been falsely worshipped for too long.
My childhood was full of the Church. Small rural villages were still built around the GAA and the Church in the early 1990s. These days my cousins go to Ju Jitsu instead of camogie, and the Crescent Shopping Centre instead of Mass. And why wouldn't they?
I was the most dedicated member of our parish choir from 8 to about 15, when I got too cool. At about 9, I pleaded with my mother to let me be an altar server. The boys in my class had served Mass for years, and it was opened to girls later. She said no. Now, I know why. Not because she had any suspicions about our local priest, a genuinely nice man, and one of the good guys. Because she wasn't going to let me serve at an altar I could never preside over. She didn't raise me to be anybody's handmaiden.
By the time my Confirmation came about, I'd decided I was an atheist. Or maybe an agnostic. I didn't really know the difference and I didn't really care. I knew I didn't believe in all the smoke and mirror, incense-scented hokum that had entranced me just a year or two previously. I have a bit more respect for the Catholic religion these days, but my views on the Church have steadily deteriorated.
Since my Confirmation, fallen idols like Eamonn Casey and paedophiles like Brendan Smith have become almost the norm. Throughout my teenage years there were reports upon reports, revelatory television shows and tell-all books that opened up the dreadful wounds of a country in its infancy where the price of freedom had been a new, more evil tyranny.
On a visit to the Vatican a couple of years ago, I found myself crying with rage. I was so angry I had to leave. The wealth and ostentation, and above all, cheek, of a small group of Western men who are still telling the rest of the world how to live was like a ball of rage in the pit of my stomach. Comparing the splendours of St Peter's Basilica with the misery of people in, in particular, Africa, who continue to spread and contract HIV/AIDS because the Vatican prohibits contraception was eye-opening. The fact, too, that this was the biggest club in the world, and as a woman I couldn't fully join it, angered me.
Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and the legion of books like it made the miserable Irish Catholic childhood almost fashionable, and most people my age have by now found out whether their parents experienced it or not. But it's almost a given, now, that they did. To some degree.
The shocked reactions of people their age - fifties and older - to the latest series of revelations, first from Cloyne and now from Dublin, is to us, disingenuous at best. We've all known this was about to burst for quite a while now. So why the shock?
Theo Dorgan's assertion that this is the beginning of the end for the Church in Ireland is interesting, because he is still in the mindset of somebody who grew up with an infallible Church. Find me somebody under forty who thinks like this. As far as we are concerned, the beginning of the end took place a long time ago.
The horror and sorrow of those who trusted the Church at these latest revelations, and the bishops' sadly inadequate reactions to them, is not present among my generation.
To those of us who grew up in the 1990s, this is completely normal.
We do not know a Church that engenders fear. We do not even know a Church that engenders respect. We know only a Church that engenders disgust, anger and the desire for retribution and the toppling from pedestals of idols who have been falsely worshipped for too long.
My childhood was full of the Church. Small rural villages were still built around the GAA and the Church in the early 1990s. These days my cousins go to Ju Jitsu instead of camogie, and the Crescent Shopping Centre instead of Mass. And why wouldn't they?
I was the most dedicated member of our parish choir from 8 to about 15, when I got too cool. At about 9, I pleaded with my mother to let me be an altar server. The boys in my class had served Mass for years, and it was opened to girls later. She said no. Now, I know why. Not because she had any suspicions about our local priest, a genuinely nice man, and one of the good guys. Because she wasn't going to let me serve at an altar I could never preside over. She didn't raise me to be anybody's handmaiden.
By the time my Confirmation came about, I'd decided I was an atheist. Or maybe an agnostic. I didn't really know the difference and I didn't really care. I knew I didn't believe in all the smoke and mirror, incense-scented hokum that had entranced me just a year or two previously. I have a bit more respect for the Catholic religion these days, but my views on the Church have steadily deteriorated.
Since my Confirmation, fallen idols like Eamonn Casey and paedophiles like Brendan Smith have become almost the norm. Throughout my teenage years there were reports upon reports, revelatory television shows and tell-all books that opened up the dreadful wounds of a country in its infancy where the price of freedom had been a new, more evil tyranny.
On a visit to the Vatican a couple of years ago, I found myself crying with rage. I was so angry I had to leave. The wealth and ostentation, and above all, cheek, of a small group of Western men who are still telling the rest of the world how to live was like a ball of rage in the pit of my stomach. Comparing the splendours of St Peter's Basilica with the misery of people in, in particular, Africa, who continue to spread and contract HIV/AIDS because the Vatican prohibits contraception was eye-opening. The fact, too, that this was the biggest club in the world, and as a woman I couldn't fully join it, angered me.
Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and the legion of books like it made the miserable Irish Catholic childhood almost fashionable, and most people my age have by now found out whether their parents experienced it or not. But it's almost a given, now, that they did. To some degree.
The shocked reactions of people their age - fifties and older - to the latest series of revelations, first from Cloyne and now from Dublin, is to us, disingenuous at best. We've all known this was about to burst for quite a while now. So why the shock?
Theo Dorgan's assertion that this is the beginning of the end for the Church in Ireland is interesting, because he is still in the mindset of somebody who grew up with an infallible Church. Find me somebody under forty who thinks like this. As far as we are concerned, the beginning of the end took place a long time ago.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A tale of two role models
A tale of two role models
Just over a week ago – last Sunday – we heard that Boyzone star Stephen Gately had died while on holiday with his civil partner Andrew Cowles in Majorca. A sad and untimely death for the young man of only 33 years old, who had brightened up the adolescences of so many teenage girls (including this one) with his sweet face and sweeter voice.
While most of the Irish media were at pains to tell the story sensitively, with respect for Gately's family and friends, some of the tabloids took the tacky approach. Finding that he died of natural causes should have been case closed, but I stopped reading after one journalist repeatedly, insistently, questioned whether Gately had vomited in his sleep. There are certain things the public needs to know, but that is not one of them.
However, the Irish media can hold its head up high in comparison to the vitriolic, bile-filled column of the Daily Mail's Jan Moir which caused outrage over the weekend in Britain, and engendered the largest amount of complaints ever to the Press Complaints Commission there. Moir's article insinuated that Gately died because of his homosexual 'lifestyle', and further hinted that there was something sinister about his death; something police have absolutely refuted, backed by the post-mortem results. Of course Moir has the right to free expression of her opinions, but facts are facts, and Gately died of natural causes.
It's against this background – one in which there still exists hateful, disgusting views about homosexuality and homosexuals – that Cork hurler Donal Og Cusack has come out as gay.
It's purely a coincidence that Cusack's revelatory autobiography is to be released this Friday, just in the wake of the death of one of Ireland's gay icons. But the timing isn't important.
What's important is that Cusack feels secure enough as a GAA player to do what would have been unthinkable just ten years ago, when Gately came out. The GAA is highly traditional in its ethos, and sport as a whole is notoriously homophobic – there are very few openly gay players in any men's sport.
In a sign that even this most traditional of Irish institutions is moving with the times, there has been no negativity since Cusack's declaration. Far from it. His team-mates and GAA officials have been quick to come out in support of his decision, and the Cork public has backed him too.
I always think it's unfair to suggest that somebody famous is a role model solely by virtue of their fame. A talent for sport, or music, or singing, does not mean a person wishes to be looked up to, or seen as some kind of example. However, in coming out publicly and facing down the homophobes, Cusack has become a role model. He is a shining example of the marriage of old Ireland with post-Celtic Tiger Ireland – of one of our greatest institutions and of our new openness.
Cusack's move will be especially important to many young people throughout Ireland, especially rural Ireland. Rural villages are the hardest places to be gay; 'the only gay in the village' is not just a TV character. Now that rural Ireland has its own gay role model, perhaps it will make life easier for those who have yet to take the step out of the closet.
Just over a week ago – last Sunday – we heard that Boyzone star Stephen Gately had died while on holiday with his civil partner Andrew Cowles in Majorca. A sad and untimely death for the young man of only 33 years old, who had brightened up the adolescences of so many teenage girls (including this one) with his sweet face and sweeter voice.
While most of the Irish media were at pains to tell the story sensitively, with respect for Gately's family and friends, some of the tabloids took the tacky approach. Finding that he died of natural causes should have been case closed, but I stopped reading after one journalist repeatedly, insistently, questioned whether Gately had vomited in his sleep. There are certain things the public needs to know, but that is not one of them.
However, the Irish media can hold its head up high in comparison to the vitriolic, bile-filled column of the Daily Mail's Jan Moir which caused outrage over the weekend in Britain, and engendered the largest amount of complaints ever to the Press Complaints Commission there. Moir's article insinuated that Gately died because of his homosexual 'lifestyle', and further hinted that there was something sinister about his death; something police have absolutely refuted, backed by the post-mortem results. Of course Moir has the right to free expression of her opinions, but facts are facts, and Gately died of natural causes.
It's against this background – one in which there still exists hateful, disgusting views about homosexuality and homosexuals – that Cork hurler Donal Og Cusack has come out as gay.
It's purely a coincidence that Cusack's revelatory autobiography is to be released this Friday, just in the wake of the death of one of Ireland's gay icons. But the timing isn't important.
What's important is that Cusack feels secure enough as a GAA player to do what would have been unthinkable just ten years ago, when Gately came out. The GAA is highly traditional in its ethos, and sport as a whole is notoriously homophobic – there are very few openly gay players in any men's sport.
In a sign that even this most traditional of Irish institutions is moving with the times, there has been no negativity since Cusack's declaration. Far from it. His team-mates and GAA officials have been quick to come out in support of his decision, and the Cork public has backed him too.
I always think it's unfair to suggest that somebody famous is a role model solely by virtue of their fame. A talent for sport, or music, or singing, does not mean a person wishes to be looked up to, or seen as some kind of example. However, in coming out publicly and facing down the homophobes, Cusack has become a role model. He is a shining example of the marriage of old Ireland with post-Celtic Tiger Ireland – of one of our greatest institutions and of our new openness.
Cusack's move will be especially important to many young people throughout Ireland, especially rural Ireland. Rural villages are the hardest places to be gay; 'the only gay in the village' is not just a TV character. Now that rural Ireland has its own gay role model, perhaps it will make life easier for those who have yet to take the step out of the closet.
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