I Believe It Was The Actor Nick Berry Who Said...

My nana turned 78 last Sunday, and we celebrated with a cemetery mass in Mount Jerome. Sure what else would you be doing?

She was anxious to get there ahead of time, though didn't fancy our chances of getting a seat. The gothic chapel is tiny - I remember it from my grandfather's cremation. We walked up the avenue and saw what must have been a couple of hundred people sitting higgledy piggeldy on headstones. Umbrellas bloomed as it started to rain, colourful nylon domes mushrooming amongst the graves. We took a pew, she on the headstone of a Dorothea ("I don't like to sit on the actual headstones" she said, as if she does this most Sundays, "but it's just the right height for my bum") and me at the base of the Wilde family memorial. The two women next to us were wearing binbags as raincoats and sucking sweets. They didn't offer us any.

Nana was struggling to remember the priest's name. They'd rigged up a PA, previous years having taught them to cater for a crowd. He was stalling, kick-off wasn't for another fifteen minutes and he didn't want anyone to miss out. Nana didn't fancy his waffle much. He gave good mass, this fella, involved the community in the ceremony and encouraged the congregation to join him in song. "I'm not like Robbie Williams or one of those fellas, now!" he joked. The oul wans didn't blink. I laughed. The PA broadcast in intermittent bursts and the crowd outside sang with him, filling in the gaps. "You'd need your Grandad here for all these old-time hymns" Nana said.

Had we had Grandad there we wouldn't have been there at all, we'd have been back in Mount Tallant cooking dinner. Grandad's in a wall, in what they call the "garden". We went down there after mass, to visit. It took us a few minutes to find the plaque with his name on. Nana pointed out the blank one beneath his, told me that that's where her name will go. She said it matter-of-factly.

We went to dinner in the Angler's Rest, because my brother had been there the night before and she thought the name sounded nice. She took her time on the stairs. Dinner was good, the waiter had a burst blood vessel in his left eye and called us "darlings". I dropped her home early that evening - she thought my aunt might drop by later. She was in great form, she'd enjoyed her mass and being treated to dinner by her grandchildren and their handsome squeezes. She went home happy, I went home in tears. I was anxious about starting my new job. And I was heartbroken for my Nana. She'd hate that, and I shouldn't be, because she's alright.

Matthew 6:34

I went to a funeral last week, to remember the father of a friend I had not seen in a long time. I hadn't seen him in so long that it seems funny to refer to him as a friend here, but it would seem funnier still to refer to him as a former friend. I am reminded of one of my favourite James Taylor songs, Places in my Past. Looking for a clip to illustrate my post with, all I could find was one of an earnest man in a baseball cap named Dodie1024 singing it sweetly as a dedication to all of his long lost friends. I don't know, I just seem to sing these songs and say I'm sorry for the friends I used to know. It's oddly moving. Or just a bit sad. I can't decide which.

I don't recall any falling out with this friend I used to know. We went to college and lost touch. He took up hockey and cricket. I took up smoking. I heard he got married. I don't know if he's heard anything of my life since school. I'm too embarrassed by my teenage self to reintroduce myself to him as an adult.

I got word of his father's death on the morning of the funeral itself. I'd rather have gone to his removal the night before - a shorter service and a single file up the aisle to shake hands and offer sympathies. It's easier, when you've lost touch, to stand in an orderly queue and wait your turn. I felt it might be arrogant somehow to approach him outside. "Isn't the point to let him know you're here?" asked the Jaffa Cake, who'd been dragged along for moral support (and as physical proof of my success in the form of a beautiful beardy man). I thought about it and decided that no, it wasn't.

I spent the hour of the funeral trying not to cry for the father of this friend I used to know, trying not to think about some day losing my own parents and instead thinking about all the time I'd spent in that church as a child. There are photos of me on the church lawn with my parents and grandparents, dressed in a white watermarked taffeta dress my mother had made for my communion day. "It's ballet length" I'd boasted to my classmates, thinking I'd be decked out in a tutu. I look serious, and freckled. I sang the psalm that day, Sé an Tiarna m'Aoire. I misunderstood the words and sang sé an Tiarna Muire, as an ode to the Virgin Mary. The choir sang it after communion at the funeral and I felt the same panic rising in my throat as I felt standing in the pulpit that day, reaching for the high note in cuireann sé ina luí mé. To calm myself, I concentrated on the ornate plasterwork behind the altar. I'd done it as a child too, imagining it to be made of icing.

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. The priest concluded the rite by quoting Matthew. No talk of going on to a better place, of sitting at the right hand of the Father. And in my best Mrs. Doyle voice, I thought "how right you are, Father, how right you are."

Oh, Christ

Sunday morning, the croissants are in the oven, the tea is cooling by my elbow, the Sunday Business Show is on the radio. I couldn't give a fuck about business and have never understood money but I find their dull and earnest chatter soothing. And this morning I need to be soothed, to have the strangers on the radio stroke my hair and tell me that really, it'll be okay. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I'd be spooning with my hangover, or maybe taking it down to Merrion Square to read the newspaper and get some air. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I am not primping and preening, trying to iron out my kinks and curls. I've spent the past hour trying to choose the least inappropriate outfit in my wardrobe, brown skirt, tan stockings, gold shoes, bangles (because to me, bangles seem sophisticated). The Swede did a double-take when I walked into the kitchen, and then laughed. "You look lovely" he said, revelling in my obvious discomfort before relenting and giving me a hug.

The cause of all this distress is sitting opposite me as I type, reading Annie's interview in the Times and blithely sipping his coffee. His nephew is to be christened this morning, and I am to be his guest. To meet his parents, and his sister. There is to be a reception, and a bouncy castle, and polite chatter; I am particularly looking forward to explaining how we met.

Childhood Trauma #73

Davey's helpful comment yesterday that "learning is for sissies" got me thinking generally about sissydom and what a complete and utter sissy I was as a kid. I'm still a bit of a sissy these days, but now I think it suits me. Back then it didn't, but I was such a fucking sissy that I hadn't a clue what to do about it. Then I read Felix's #5 this morning and the true extent of my sissyness as a kid washed over me again in a wave.

There is incident from 1988 that haunts me yet, a public humiliation from my time in rang a haon with Múinteoir Ciara where the memory of the burning in my cheeks is still so vivid that I have to lay a hand to my face to check that I'm not blushing again. It was the year of our first Holy Communion, that rite of passage that signified, well, I'm not too sure on the whole Catholic side of things but it was significant for me in that I bought a set of swings for the garden with my communion money. Before we could get stuck into a bit of Holy Jesus, however, there was the ritual of the First Confession.

The process was explained to us in detail, the priest introduced, we were reassured that our confessions would be heard on the altar rather than in the confessional boxes lest the claustrophobic amongst us have a shit attack on the big day. We then had a quickfire Q&A as a prelude to the practice confession we were going to make to our teacher. Which is when it all went horribly wrong. My friend Martha put her hand up, the picture of genuine, worried sincerity, and asked what would happen if you hadn't got anything to tell the priest, because, she reasoned, "Rosie doesn't have any sins!"

Cue silence while the 32 eight year olds and their teacher ponder this hitherto unforeseen snag caused by the innocence of the class Goody-Poxy-Two-Shoes. That's right, I thought miserably, as the lot of them stared at me and my already red cheeks turned puce. I don't. I'm 8. I could make one up, but that would be a lie, and a sin on the altar.

I went home that day mortified at having been singled out from the crowd because of my virtue. I gave my brother a thump, muttered a bad word under my breath at my mam and thought about dipping her purse for tenpence (a step too far - but thinking about it was a good start). I resolved once and for all to rid myself of the nickname the class clown had bestowed upon me - "The Walking Talking Statue".

I've been moderately successful.

Fire And Brimstone

We brought Grandad to the church last night, and are to bury him this morning. I didn't want to go in to the funeral home to see him in his coffin - dressed in his suit and Aston Villa tie, the bruise from when last he fell still shining on his forehead, rosary beads knotted in his hands. But I was opening doors, escorting an elderly aunt and it seemed only proper to follow her in. Funerals are all about propriety, aren't they? I lasted all of two minutes in there. It wasn't Grandad himself that I didn't want to be around, it was everyone else crowded into the tiny chapel, the dim light, the uncomfortable silence. I sat outside instead, talking weather with the funeral director and golf with my two handsome little cousins.

My air of decorum lapsed between the funeral home and the church; my dad and I took a stroll instead of a lift and the elastic snapped in the waistband of my woolly black tights, meaning I had to spend the rest of the evening trying to walk with my legs crossed lest the tights ended up around my ankles (I eventually tied a great big knot in the waistband, making for an unflattering silhouette but a more natural gait). I'm playing it safe for the funeral mass this morning and wearing jeans and cowboy boots. I've to do a reading (as Gaeilge, so I may as well give a weather report as a reading from the Book of Wisdom, as I think I'll be the only one present who speaks Irish anyway) and the last thing I want is to trip over my own undergarments as I step up to the plate.

I am, however, reassured that no matter what I do up there this morning, I cannot possibly be more offensive than the priest who welcomed Grandad to the church last night. I've written about Fr. Sensitive before, after I enjoyed a particularly misogynistic sermon of his over Christmas. You might expect a degree of compassion from him on an occasion such as this one, but you would be disappointed. As well as getting Grandad's name wrong from the get-go, he indulged in an offensive, insensitive, irrelevant and entirely inappropriate sermon which lasted for the best part of, oh, a fucking lifetime. He spoke mainly about the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the nuclear family, denouncing promiscuity (repeatedly, loudly and in no uncertain terms) single parent families, "other things" and money, the root of all evil. He peppered his sermon with humanising touches, being holy does not have to mean being boring you know. Why, he himself enjoys the characters in the Premiership and has a friend video the football for him. "Alex liked football too" he admitted, trying to turn his self-indulgent rant into something that was relevant to the man we were there to mourn and failing miserably by again calling him by the wrong name. Had it been anything other than my grandfather's removal I'd have walked out, as would everyone else I spoke to after the sermon. As my brother pointed out afterwards, funerals are the Catholic church's no. 1 PR opportunity, where they can prove their worth by offering solace to a grieving family in front of a crowd that they wouldn't have on a Sunday - an audience, not a congregation. Instead people left the church yesterday evening relieved not to be a part of it.

Blessed Is She Amongst Women

I've mentioned my mild allergy to religiosity before but I had to swallow it the other morning and attend mass with my nana. I had stayed overnight with her and she sprung it on me over breakfast; "I just thought we could do that and then go in to see him... you know, that way I could say a few prayers and tell the priest not to call here to the house on Christmas eve with communion for him". Pack your bags, we're going on a guilt trip! I made a half-arsed non-joke about waiting for her in the car but my going to mass would mean she'd have one less soul to worry about, so of course I went in with her.

Her parish church is massive, it must have a capacity of 1500 or more. The congregation on Sunday numbered about 60. Most of them were alone, most of them were middle aged or older. Almost all of them chose to sit alone too - whatever mass gives them, it's not the comfort of a sense of community. The liturgy was familiar from my years of attending mass as a child; there is some consolation in the routine of standing, sitting, kneeling, going through the motions. So far, so inoffensive. Until we got to the homily (the priest's chance to freestyle for a few moments after the gospel has been read). This week's topic? Vaginae.

Did you know that the Virgin Mary was a virgin? "She was a virgin prior to the conception of Our Lord. A virgin even after his birth, for through some miracle she was not defiled by the act of giving birth, her virginity remained intact. She chose to preserve her pure and virginal status ever after". Words bellowed in admiration by a celibate man in his mid seventies who has presumably never seen a vagina and thinks himself the better for it. It grates on me that the Catholic faith worships its leading lady for her intact hymen above all else.

Post Scriptum:
The plural of vagina is vaginae. Who knew? (not I)

Glendalough's Saint Kevin, a Fine Example to Men Everywhere

I spent a pleasant afternoon in Glendalough yesterday, eating ice cream and strolling in the sunshine with a few friends. Having been there on many a previous occasion and being the naturally garrulous sort, I was the unofficial tour guide for the group, pointing out things of interest and making up plausible but inaccurate stories about them. My favourites are the ones about St. Kevin himself, founder of the monastic site and all-round nice guy. Oh no, wait...

According to (apparently untrustworthy) legends, Kevin Bokelmann was a bit of a bollox. Different sources have different slants on his tale. Being the shite but entertaining tour guide that I am, I like to pick salacious details from each of them and construct my own version of events. He died in 618AD anyway, so is unlikely to sue. He lived as a hermit in a pokey hole in the rockface above the upper lake and liked to pray for extended periods of time with his arms outstretched, crucifixion style. Apparently he was a master at it and could ignore the burning pain in his arms for, oh, I dunno, ages. I can't do it for very long myself. But he was so good at it that one day, as he was praying, a blackbird nested on his hand and laid an egg. Being fonder of blackbirds than he was of women (more on this anon) he was loathe to disturb it, and so maintained his pose until the bird had hatched. The story has some fuzzy moral behind it, but I tell it as I think it works well as a contrast to the story of how Kevin is supposed to have treated his would-be paramour, Kathleen.

Thomas Moore sets the scene for us in his neat little ditty; By that Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore. Like many Irish men, Kevin was a shy lad and utterly terrified of women and their womanly bits. To escape their bewildering temptations he high-hoed to his miserable little pokey hole in the rock, to live out his days in solitude, emphatically not touching himself.

By that Lake, whose gloomy shore
Sky-lark never warbles o'er,*
Where the cliff hangs high and steep,
Young Saint Kevin stole to sleep.
"Here, at least," he calmly said,
"Woman ne'er shall find my bed."
Ah! the good Saint little knew
What that wily sex can do.

Some verses in the middle describe how nice a stalker Kathleen was, and how she tracked him down to his pokey hole in the rock with the intention of seducing him. Her plan was foiled, however, as he whipped her with a bunch of nettles and then drowned her in the lake below.

Sternly from his bed he starts,
And with rude repulsive shock
Hurls her from the beetling rock.

He redeems himself in the final verse and repents like a good Christian. Alas, it's too little too late and poor Kathleen's sleeping with the fishes at this stage.

Glendalough, thy gloomy wave
Soon was gentle Kathleen's grave!
Soon the Saint (yet ah! too late,)
Felt her love, and mourn'd her fate.
When he said, "Heaven rest her soul!"
Round the Lake light music stole;
And her ghost was seen to glide,
Smiling, o'er the fatal tide.

So she died happy, it seems. No harm done then.

*Not fond of the early mornings, Kevin put a hex on the lark so that none sing over the lakes in Glendalough. True story.

For the Love of God

I met a nice boy in work yesterday, a musician. Cute, bright, smiley; after he finished his gig we went for a cup of coffee (of course when I say coffee, I mean tea. I'm not sophisticated enough to drink coffee, or even earl grey. Milky, milky tea...) and got to talking about his day job. Turns out he works in a shelter for Dublin's homeless. Genuinely interested, I started asking him all sorts of questions about it and quietly admiring how he does what he does and the easy way he talks about it. I had somewhere to be and so did he, so we walked a bit of the way, chatting more. I mentioned that I'd like to get involved in that kind of work in my home town and asked him which organisation he was working with. Turns out it's the Legion of Mary.

I didn't really know what to say. Raised a Catholic at least until my early teens, I should probably know who they are and what they do but I hadn't a notion and I really didn't want to ask. The name conjured up images of militant Eucharistic ministers wearing pious looks and pearls and smelling faintly of piss, so naturally I was having trouble reconciling that with the cute and scruffy boy I was flirting with. Fuck it, I thought, play along and google it later, see what brand of mentlers he belongs to.

I think of myself as an agnostic atheist* and I find that despite myself, I feel very uncomfortable around devoutly religious people. Most of all around those whose beliefs would have them spread the word and recruit others to their cause. Given that I'm very comfortable in my non-belief it shouldn't bother me in the slightest, I suppose, but it does. So where I should have maybe asked the cute scruffy boy for his number, I balked and went on my merry way. I did think about it, but his offer of a miraculous medal as a parting gift was just too much for me, so I ran.

Not literally, just in my head. Hightailing it off down Fleet St without so much as a handshake is too rude even for me.

*Summed up by Wikipedia as "I don't know, but I don't think so".