Why I now keep my Catholic faith in a biscuit tin

Sunday Tribune, 7 March

I have a battered old biscuit tin in the attic. It contains tokens of my past: little pebbles that make up a shifting bank of memory. I took it down the other day and sifted through it.
There was a bead from a long-forgotten teenage girlfriend's bracelet, once-significant ticket stubs, a souvenir from the Isle of Man and a lighter from Ayia Napa. Letters, cards and negatives were neatly bundled under the Crawford's Assorted lid. There were also two grubby rosettes: white and red. The medallion is missing from the first, but the confirmation rosette still bears its depiction of the Holy Spirit descending.
There is a picture, too, of my class from the Harold, Glasthule, posing in our confirmation gear. It is 1978 and I am wearing a corduroy safari jacket, brown trousers and a polo neck. I look 100% nerd. We all do: with our rosettes, we're like a herd of prize-winning prats. The innocent expressions point to our childishness: the jackets and rosettes point ahead to adulthood. It is a watershed picture.
That same year, another boy my age was probably also looking goofy in his confirmation gear in Wexford. Colm O'Gorman's journey from confirmation to adulthood couldn't have been more different to my own. He suffered appalling clerical sexual abuse in his teens.
Last week, he reacted to the suggestion by Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan, that parishioners might help pay the diocese's €1.2m debts accrued while fighting abuse victims. O'Gorman says when he began proceedings in 1998, it was against the church, not the parishioners. His calm response was at odds with the prevailing anger. All week, I seethed with rage when I thought of Brennan's 'suggestion'.
O'Gorman has an article on his website about the death of his Catholicism. It struck a chord. His early memories are comforting ones. Many will remember flickering Sacred Hearts and prayers to ward off evil. Or looking over your shoulder for a guardian angel with superhero powers. Or asking silly questions like "did Baby Jesus get Easter eggs?"
As a youngster, I had unshakeable faith in the church and uncomplainingly endured the boring bits like Mass and the horrors of confession.
For a month, my pathetic sins would stack up like missals on a pew, before being scattered by a couple of Hail Marys. I would walk home clouded in sanctity. Then thoughts about the girl down the road would steal back in…
Watching the church's own slow confession over the years has been like watching an onion being peeled layer by layer. It ended in tears – of anger – as my Catholicism died. As the lies made a mockery of the trembling prayers and incantations whispered sotto voce.
There is a palpable feeling of emptiness when you lose the church. When you realise the spiritual crutch is gone and you want the moral guardian of your childhood forced to its knees.
There's no joy in typing those words and they are not cathartic. They go against a pre-conditioned emotional grain. Losing faith is, arguably, worse than never having it.
According to the 2006 Census, 86% of us are Catholic. The figure doesn't reflect the à la carte nature of that Catholicism. After Brennan's crass suggestion, many will find even an arm's-length association with Catholicism too close.
How many times will we have to hear the church say sorry before it's genuinely sorry? How can it apologise and then suggest someone else shares the tab for its crimes? All we hear is the meaningless mantra of "we must forgive, share the pain, reflect…" The Beatitudes have been replaced by platitudes.
It's not truly sorry, because the whey-faced, pompous old men, in their silly hats, are still too far removed from hardship to understand it.
Bishop Brennan's abuse tax suggestion is appalling. The parishioners of Ferns must not pay it. There was national anger before Christmas when friends of a convicted Listowel sex attacker queued to shake his hand in front of his victim. Putting money in the abuse tax basket will have the same effect on the victims of Ferns.
There is another way Brennan can generate money. Every June, the church sends a tribute to Rome. This collection is called Peter's Pence and is used for "the material needs of poor dioceses… etc". In 2008, Peter's Pence raised €50m worldwide and Ireland was the sixth biggest contributor.
Ferns could declare itself a "poor diocese" and ask for Peter's Pence to pay its legal bills. The price of asking would be utter humiliation. Humility is something the Irish church badly needs.
Any argument that this would create a precedent can be ignored. It should create a precedent and Pope Benedict should be happy to pay up.
I still wear a cross, not out of loyalty to Rome but as a symbol of the Christian philosophy I try to live by. It's also a reminder of the Catholic faith I now keep in a biscuit tin.
Rome knew of the sex abuse claims in Ferns and did nothing about them. It stole the faith of a generation. We're in Lent, the season of sacrifice, Bishop Brennan. Let Rome sacrifice its tribute money this year. For all the pain it has caused, ask it to turn Peter's Pence into Peter's Penance.

dkenny@tribune.ie

Going back on the Wanderly Wagon to forget all our troubles

Sunday Tribune, 28 February 2010

The following is a Wanderly Wagon story that may shock fans of Mr Crow. (Close your eyes… now.)
In 1979, a friend sneaked off on an unofficial tour of RTE's studios while waiting to record a TV show. After inspecting Bunny Carr's Quicksilver set (and Norman's organ), Jimmy Smyth found himself standing in the shadow of the iconic wagon. Being a fan, he climbed inside to discover, to his disappointment, that it was just a shell. There was nothing inside but bare wood.
Jimmy also made another discovery that rattled his childhood memories. Just below the hatch someone had written – in thick, black letters – the revelatory sentence: 'Mr Crow is a W***er'. I sometimes lie awake wondering what went through the puppeteer's mind as he stuck his hand up Crow's backside, with 'Mr Crow is a W***er' staring him in the face. Thank you, Jimmy, for that charming story.
(Open your eyes... now.) I have my own memory of Wanderly Wagon. On a trip to Montrose with my father, I also discovered that the wagon was just a prop. I was nine and still remember that day. It was like losing a friend.
Last Wednesday, I had the same sad feeling when I heard that Eugene Lambert had died. Most Irish people between the ages of 35 to 50 felt the same way.
Wanderly Wagon was a 'bookmark' in our childhood. Lambert's death briefly stopped the clock and brought a rare, unconscious moment of national unity. The country's grown-ups stopped squabbling and ran splashing into a sea of nostalgia. There was a collective sigh as the wagon carried us to an age of talking crows and witches.
For a short while, the utter crapulosity of life in 2010 was forgotten and memories were traded. Remember the magic handle, which you turned to get your 'dearest wish'? Or Foxy, who lived in a barrel? Or the Moon Mice and Sneaky Sssssnake? And Rory with his fringed cowboy jacket and cravat (now there's mixed signals).
Mortgages, Trevor Sargent and Willie O'Dea were briefly shunted aside by a brightly coloured caravan from the 1970s. We recalled a time when our only responsibility was to be children.
It brought back memories to me of being driven to Laytown for the summer, with the dog on my mother's lap and the cat hissing like a slow puncture in the basket beneath my feet. Three children squashed into the back of a Triumph Dolomite roaring 'Here comes the Wagon, the WANDERLY, WAAAANNDERLY WAGGGGON!!!' and me wanting to go for a pee. I remember running in and wrestling with the rabbit's ears before settling down to watch Judge and O'Brien through a swarm of black and white interference bees.
Wanderly Wagon didn't challenge and it wasn't educational or scrupulously politically correct – it was just fun. It made you laugh while the strikes and violence of the '70s raged outside.
It was thoroughly Irish and was wedded to the landscape. In a child's eyes there were Wanderly Wagons in every Travellers' field and every bearded, ragged tramp was Fortycoats.
On Wednesday, it felt as if O'Brien was giving us a hug from the past. It was hard to resist him. The small details kept coming. I remembered soggy, sandy tomato sandwiches and TK lemonade on a windy beach. Dripping ice cream sandwiches, sherbert fountains and Gollywog sweets. Tokens for Texaco's 'signed' Liam Brady footballs, marbles, kick-the-can and scraped knees. Hand-me-downs and swap shops, sardines on toast and oxtail soup in metal bowls. Smog and candy cigarettes.
There was the childish belief that everything was possible. If a caravan could fly, what couldn't be achieved?
Fast forward to 2010. What has been achieved? We're where our parents used to be. We're the adults now. Judge's Safe Cross Code boy grew up to be Fianna Fáil TD, Chris Andrews. We grew up into a world as chaotic as any Wanderly Wagon plotline.
We have national disunity, huge unemployment and crushing debt. We gave the banks Nama and they've given us increased rates on personal loans. We have a political system in turmoil and there's been a return to '70s-style violence in the north.
Family life has changed. According to the ESRI, more married couples are breaking up after the birth of their first child. More are deferring having children.
These are some of the reasons why many of us felt grateful for the respite Lambert gave us last week.
With all the cynicism about, it's easy to forget that this country can produce inspiring, unsung heroes like Lambert. It's good to be reminded of that. He was a man who entertained children just for the love of it. He was the mad uncle who babysat us while our parents fought a recession. Our generation wasn't the 'Pope's Children', we were 'O'Brien's Children'.
Dublin is festooned with statues to patriots who mean less to us than Lambert. Luke Kelly has a bridge and Philo has a statue – Lambert deserves, at least, a park named after him. Somewhere we can sit and remember our childhood.
Somewhere we can hitch a lift from adulthood on the memory of a gawdy caravan, with a crow and a Godmother.
Somewhere we can sit with a huge man, with a huge heart and a cloth dog in his arms.
Thanks for the memories, Eugene.

dkenny@tribune

February 28, 2010