Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Nancy Folan, (Month's Mind).
11.00 Colm Ferguson & Maureen Loughnane, (Anniv).
6.30: Bish Mass, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

The First World War ended 90 years ago on Tuesday last. Television in particular, swung into overdrive, 'lest we forget', I presume. In excess of 10 million people perished as a direct result of war, and a further 22 million were (and still are) listed as missing. It is now estimated that 250,000 Irish joined the British army and navy during the period 1914-18. These men left Ireland at the promptings of John Redmond to fight for "the freedom of small nations"; on return, Home Rule would be their reward.

They left Ireland as heroes. They returned to an utterly changed landscape. Redmond and his entire party had been obliterated in a revolutionary and democratic landslide. Many of the returned soldiers, like Tom Barry, joined the Volunteers; others, still in British uniform, became bewildered and unsure of their allegiance. These were now treated like traitors and the story of their hardships was, up to very recent times, sadly neglected.

While intensely interested in history, I have no interest whatsoever in military history as such. For example, I could not distinguish between a squad and a battalion, or tell you how, or if, a brigade differs from a platoon. And long may it remain so! I would, however, be very interested in the effects of war on the lives of people. The 'human interest' element of war does fascinate me.

Local historian, William Henry, has written an absorbing account of the impact the Great War had on the people of Galway, 'Galway and the Great War' (2006). In the month of August 1914 alone, 1,623 Galway men joined up at Renmore Barracks. The Claddagh and Munster Lane alone supplied 600 men. This was enormous when you consider that the population of Galway at the time was a mere 13,000. According to Henry, no British town of comparable size could boast of a per capita representation approaching that figure.

Two pithy stories in Henry's book are revealing. The first concerns a recruitment rally on Eyre Square in early 1915. During the rally, two heavily pregnant Belgian nuns are brought on to the stage by the military. According to the recruiting officer, both nuns had been raped by German soldiers some months earlier. The audience was stunned. 'The same fate will befall our Irish women when the Hun arrives' screamed the speaker. The tactic had the desired effect. A queue formed outside the recruiting office on William St. It later emerged of course that the two 'pregnant nuns' were in fact two Connemara women with pillows under their dresses. They had been hired as part of the war machine!

The second story concerns the fruits of war. During 1917, it was common for the Claddagh people to find holes dug in the road outside the Dominican Church in the morning. People wondered for some time how this was happening, but soon discovered that it was the work of an unfortunate soldier, home on leave. It seems the war had seriously affected him, and he had spent so much time on burial detail that he was getting up at night to dig what he believed were graves. His neighbours did not confront him, but simply repaired the road during the day.

These two vignettes prop up the story of the war like two book-ends: Galway's part in the war began in deception and ended in madness. What a tragic tale!

-Dick Lyng

Future Happenings

A Saint for our Time

Carlo Carretto (1910-1988), the famous Italian spiritual writer, joined The Little Brothers of Jesus, a contemplative order inspired by the desert hermit and mystic, Charles de Foucauld. After ten years in the North African desert, Carretto returned to Europe to work with monastic groups in both France and Italy. He died on the feast of Saint Francis at a contemplative centre he founded in central Italy which was open to all people who desired a period of solitude and reflection.

Carlo Carretto loved the Church deeply but was honest enough to admit its faults. He wrote this ode to the Church:

How much I must criticise you, my Church,
and yet how much I love you!
You have made me suffer more than anyone
and yet I owe more to you than to anyone.
I should like to see you destroyed
and yet I need your presence.
You have given me much scandal
and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.
Never in this world have I seen anything
more compromised, more false,
yet never have I touched anything
more pure, more generous or more beautiful.
Countless times I have felt like slamming
the door of my soul in your face -
and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in
your sure arms!
No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one, with you,
even if not completely you.
Then too - where would I go?
To build another church?
But I could not build one without the same defects,
for they are my defects.
And again, if I were to build another church,
it would be my church, not Christ's Church.
No, I am old enough, I know better.

War of Words..."

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