There’s a non-faith lobby out there in Northern Ireland and it’s winning. Alf McCreary in
the Belfast Telegraph, reports that Christianity is being erased in townhalls across the
province by lack of a prayer or a Bible reading or even a brief moment of meditation and
recollection, before council meetings. And even if a prayer were to be uttered in that
setting, it would likely attract the attention of the Equality Commission.
That’s Northern Ireland for you. A place where, as Mr McCreary says, politics gives
religion a bad name.
Not so in the Republic of Ireland where religion is so vigorous a force that government
found time in 2009, in the midst of a collapsing economy, to introduce a blasphemy law.
Under its terms, acts of blasphemy are punishable with fines of up to €25,000. The law
came into force on 1 January 2012.
At about that time I joined Twitter and found myself among a group of committed
blasphemers who had undertaken to test the new law by blaspheming daily on Twitter.
Although not a natural blasphemer, I joined them and tweeted my daily blasphemy. In
vain we waited for Gardaí to swoop at dawn.
Eventually blasphemy palled. We neglected to blaspheme, deleted our worst excesses and
would have forgotten all about blasphemy except that once in a while we were reminded
when Ireland’s blasphemy laws were used to justify human rights abuses, from Saudi
Arabia to Pakistan. Enda Kenny accepted that there was a problem and promised to hold a
referendum that would remove the inappropriate clause from our Constitution.
Unfortunately he forgot all about it, even though his dismay at the Charlie Hebdo
massacre in Paris ought to have reminded him.
Meanwhile, events may overtake us. The Irish Islamic Cultural Centre sees a clear breach
of Irish blasphemy law in the sale of the post-massacre Charlie Hebdo issue, with its
blasphemous cartoon of the Prophet, in Irish newsagents’ shops. The Irish secularist
organisation Irish Atheist, on the other hand, has engaged in deliberate blasphemy by re-
printing the post-massacre Charlie Hebdo front page, in the hope of provoking a
prosecution.
We wait in suspense. Can Gardaí be persuaded to recognise a breach of the blasphemy
law and take appropriate action? It might be a simpler option for Enda to just get on with
the referendum.
Blasphemy? For the love of God! That would be like getting school grades from your Sunday School teacher.
While there may well be a non-faith lobby in Norneverland, Soinbhe, it doesn’t necessarily follow that ‘this is not so in the Republic’.
Where there is, and in a peculiar way, there isn’t a non-faith lobby.
To tease out the enigma, perhaps it is opportune to recall the title of the old singalong ballad: ‘Do you want your old lobby washed down, Sunshine?’.
Certainly, If one were to go by the ubiquity (a god-like quality) of the, erm, Godfather of the Atheist Movement in the Free Southern Stateen, one Michael Nugent on the airwaves during the past week, then one might be rightly inclined to conclude there was indeed such a non-faith lobby.
So popular is M. Nugent in fact with the narrow-focus broadcasting industry down here that his popularity in the studios of the Stateen is second only to the popularity he enjoys with himself. Michael Nugent always sounds like he is immensely happy to be sharing the same studio with Michael Nugent . Or, as the current phrase has it, ‘he is always there for himself’.
Indeed, his only rivals at the moment in Wirelessworld for the title of Mr.Amour Propre (which is also Kermit for ‘Vive Moi !’) are Ray D’Arcy (with the giggling Mrs. D’Arcy at the control knobs of his 500,000 euro show) and the one man Chuckle Brother from Ardboe, Barry ‘Chuck, chuck, chuckle ‘ Devlin. While there may well be a high cross in his home village, BD has been never known to exchange a cross word in a high voice with BD, ever.
Although Mr. Nugent has no truck with God he is big into goading. Not only does he goad Catholics, oops, Roman Catholics but as a finely-tuned football fan he is also known to goad the racially pure GAA backwoodsmen who will insist in using the Neanderthal term ‘soccer’.
This is, quaintly enough, a tolerant trait he shares with another non-faith lobbyist, one Edward du Cann, oops, meant to tap out, Eamonn McCann. In his weekly column in that town crier for tolerance, The Unionist Times, some weeks ago The Man who is Thursday wrote in his distinctive non-Chestertonian prose about football, football and, oh, yez !, football.
The subtext here was: ‘No bogball, please, we’re Bogsiders’. We’re already into injury time now, before E. McCann, Esquire comes out of the linguistic closet and reveals how sad he is he did not proclaim himself a Londonderry man long ago. It is but a short, indirect free kick from ‘football’ to the L-word.
Then, as recently as last week, the non-believing E. McCann was goading God, I believe, yet again. And in no uncertain words. Booing the Big Mon, it’s called up his way.
Nugent , New Consensus. The versatile Michael Nugent is no newcomer to the brave, new world of dissing those who disagree with the D.O.P.E.s (Demonisers of Pearse’s Eireland). And herein lies the enigma (see above).
While a devoted piceketer (it is said Michael Nugent would even picket his nose if it sneezed to make a sound like ‘srone’) it was somewhat passing strange that New Consensus never actually got around to picketing the barracks of the B.A. and other Centres of Peace Studies.
That was on account of his strong belief in the even-handedness of the benevolent British Forces of Her Majesty in Norneverland. Which showed the Godfather of Atheism Ireland to be not entirely without, erm, blind faith. Ditto, with regard to his co-founder of the New Consensus, one Anne Holliday.
One of the most poignant scenes of faith, pure and simple, in the history of Dawson Street (Dublin, not the Yukon) was the stand off between a gallant Ms. Holliday and the ambivalent mob the day the eldest son of HM, one Prince Charles, he of the Morris Minor wing ears, visited the Mansion House. There alone this Limerick lady stood, with Union Jack in hand. He-man Perkie’s inner Crying Boy had to suppress a treacherous tear that day,so touching was the sight.
Both co-founders of New Consenus, Nugent and Holliday, displayed a keen interest in matters to do with transportation. Not least in cross-border trainspotting. Curiously, this was an interest which did not quite extend to helicopters.
The versatile Michael Nugent has been known to push the pen too, as well as the envelope. From writing prank letters (which we all did during our snotty nosed schooldays along the lines of ‘Dear Mr. Fox on April Fool’s Day’ but eventually grew out of) to further hilariously comic book stuff for the theatre, like ‘I, Beano’, or perhaps it was ‘I, Keano’.
The reason for one’s uncertainly is one’s shamefully low threshold for poppy-wearing, poppy-cock spouting Corkonians.
In matters theatrical, one prefers – faith and begorrah ! – to put one’s trust in a full-blooded Englishman rather than in the wishy washy West British Britvic-sipping types.
The Great Shakes (for it is he!) chose as his topic the profoundly fleeting one of the hereafter in which to wrap his most illustrious soliloquy. The one he inserted in the mouth of his most unforgettable character . The one, of course, referred to in textspeak as ‘2B r nt 2B’.
And in which, one believes, The Great Shakes came down on the side of the old ambivalence, i.e. on the hedgerow side of agnosticism, rather than the clear cut side of the certainties, atheism.
That the Swan of Avon (as the Immortal Bard was also called) was a hedger of bets, even, a hurler on the ditch, is most clearly seen (even by the bland) in the most memorable word in this passage of memorable words: the c-word, contumely. As in, ‘the proud man’s contumely’
A daaarling word, Joxer, a daaarling word.
Indeed, perhaps the daaalingest word in the Q’s English.
To put in a sentence. Let one see. Ah, yes: ‘The New Consensus of Michael Nugent and Ann Holliday (alas, now gone to that undiscovered country from whose gay bourn no train traveller returns) were mucho given to heaping contumely on those who chose not to wear a poppy badge to show they are non-believers in Her Madge’.
Contumely: the key word in ‘2B r nt 2B’.
It is, after all, a noun purporting to be an adverb. (Other examples , and not far behind in the queue of daarling words in the Q.’s English, are: friendly, ally, daily, oily. Though they are adjectives who purport to be adversbs).
A’s who purport to be a’s.
Not unlike, come to think of it, agnostics who purport to be, erm, atheists.
In fairness, obviously,at the end of the day, going forward it is the solid, unshakeable certainly of the anglicised atheists (they go together like ‘proud’ and ‘contumely’) of Eireland which gets the goat, in this The Year of the Sheep, of that ambivalent, bet-hedging hurler on the ditch, P. Warbeck, Esquire.
Och, aye, there’s the rub a Dub.
People should respect others` religious beliefs, why would anyone wish to deliberately cause offence? That was one of the reasons the conflict in the north kicked off, a desire by ultra fundamentalist Protestants to stick their noses into Catholic teaching, no good can come of it. Insulting a person for their religious beliefs is as bad as insulting someone for their sexual preferences.
Alf might be happy to note that Dáil business only gets under way after this little invocation of the Supreme Being.
“Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every word and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by Thee be happily ended; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Although I’m not sure any outcomes are a dazzling testament to the power of prayer.