Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: (Vigil) Joseph & Esther Creane & family, (Anniv).
11.00 Christina Foy, (Anniv).
6.30: Eileen, Cecil & Lenny Stocker, Cross St. (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

Air accidents are extremely rare; hence they make big news. Apparently, the chances of being killed on a single flight stands at about eight million-to-one.

And yet great fears and insecurities cling like barnacles to air travel. We can all visualise the scene: you've gone through check-in, they've taken your baggage and checked your passport. Clutching your boarding card you make your way into the isolating bubble which is the aeroplane. Settled in your seat, you half-watch, half-listen as a member of the cabin crew goes through the faintly comical safety routine - escape doors, oxygen masks, life-belts. You've heard it all before and of course it never happens. The engines start up and you settle down for the flight. And then, suddenly, it all seems to be going wrong.

This is precisely what happened to the 168 passengers on the Ryanair flight from Bristol to Barcelona on Monday night last. The routine flight became an inexplicable nightmare.

We all know that, statistically, air travel is much safer than road travel. Yet there is something about air accidents that makes them peculiarly awful. Often it is the sheer scale of the fatalities, as in the 154 killed in the Madrid crash recently. Or perhaps it's the sudden dislocation of the ordinary - a holiday in the sun, a long-awaited visit to far-off relatives.

We can feel a kinship, a human bond, with the victims. We've been there. We can imagine what it's like.

Our first reaction is shock and solidarity. It could have been us, or our children. The second reaction is to search for explanations. We expect the world to operate in an orderly way. Planes traverse the globe daily. Why did this one not follow the normal pattern: check-in, take-off, flight, landing?

The third reaction is to seek a scapegoat. If it happened, it must be somebody's fault. And, if the principal culprit is not exposed immediately, as in the Ryanair incident, let's hunt for secondary culprits: like the cabin staff who did not tell us that we were falling like stones from the skies! Yet valid explanations are swatted like flies!

This last reaction is born of an essentially modern concept, that we are masters of our environment, in control of our destinies. Yet accidents happen, undermining our feelings of security in the technological safety net in which we think we live. In these circumstances, it's not surprising that many people look for a scapegoat, and when they do, it's generally God who gets the blame. (Even in a secular age, God has his uses!)

"Time and chance happen to us all", says the Book of Ecclesiastes - rich and poor, brilliant and dim, old and young. That's the sort of world we live in. Chance - accident, if you like - is the price we pay for a world of possibilities. We can ask God to comfort the distressed and those who mourn, as we do, but we really can't ask him to re-create a world in which such things can't possibly happen. Then we would have to pray: "Please God, cancel reality!" On seconds thoughts, please leave us to take our chance in this flawed creation you fashioned for us.

-Dick Lyng

The Late Pat Jennings

{This is extracted from an article by Kieran Hayes, first published in the 'Galway Advertiser' in 2003, to mark the 88th birthday of renowned boatman, Pat Jennings, Long Walk. Pat died this week, aged 93.}

An acknowledged master of the art of sail-cutting and weaving, boats still traverse the bay under power from sails cut by his hand. His love of the sea and of boats is undimmed; his spirit comes alive as he speaks of a lifetime of work and memories. During our conversation he jumps from the couch and takes down a two-foot long model of a hooker he calls St Mary, that he hand-carved from a solid block of wood. It is fully rigged with the hookers signature angled red sails. A plaque on the cabinet commemorates his victory in the All-Ireland hooker racing competition in 1979, held on MacDara Island.

This is the house where Pat raised his family after moving from Feenish in 1954. At the time he had seven children to care for with his wife, Nora Joyce, and had bought his first boat, the Columbia, a year previously. The clan continued to grow: He has ten daughters, and five sons, one of whom drowned while out fishing off Baltimore in Cork. Martin's body was found after 17 days. He was 25 years old. The tragedy marked Pat deeply: "Martin was a hard worker and a good man."

By the time he had finished school Pat was already working with his father, John Jennings, on a boat hauling cargo to Connemara. As he says, "you had to go on the boats and forget about school." He worked on hookers for several years before he bought and skippered his first boat, the Columbia, in his late twenties.

Pat carried kelp from Aran to Galway, and from the docks in Galway he would load the boat with flour, bran, and Guinness for transport to Roundstone, Carna, and Moynett. He would trawl Galway Bay and the Mayo coast as far as Achill for herring, fish off Connemara for scallops and mackerel, and Kilkerrin for scallop.

"It was all sails in those days," says Pat, who navigated and fished for many years without radar, using just chart and compass; it gave him a much deeper and intuitive knowledge of Galway's coastal waters. His way was the old way, and the skills he learned were passed on through family, community, and living experience.

Coilin Phaidin of Feenish taught him the art of handcutting and weaving calico sails for hookers, varnished with tar and butter as a sealant. This gave the sails a brown, reddish colour, darker than the more durable material now favoured.

During one six week period Pat cut and sewed sails for three boats, including 150 yards of sail for a hooker the Airc, owned by his cousin, one of the boats he worked on as a youth.

Pat brought toughness and a sustaining humour to his work. Those who worked with him recall his discipline and his generosity. As we speak he tells of the stories the crew would swop, and lilts a short rhyme in Irish, smiling mischievously.

Pat is the last member of his family still alive. Many of his fishing buddies have also died. But it's clear that he still loves boats, and loves the life he lived. You sense that this is a man who was happiest and most at home heading for open sea, past Aran sound.

Some Positive Feed-Back...

Dear Fr.,

I live in London and spent last weekend with my wife and children in Galway (struggling with the awful weather!!). We attended the 11am Mass at the Augustinian (as I had often done as a young boy - my grandparents lived at 6 Market Street - Garvey).

I was particularly struck with the sense of family and spirituality that prevails at the Augustinian - much had changed since my last visit ( many moon ago!!), and for the better.

I was very impressed with the central positioning of the altar and the emphasis on God being at the centre of the church and our lives. It is a real pity that more parishes do not follow suit. Mass celebrated together as a community and family is so much more fulfilling. The sermon was really well put together and the choir were superb. The overall experience was wonderful.

Well done to you all.

Kind regards,
Barry Tansey

Happenings...

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