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When I worked in Ireland most of my workmates were practising Catholics and worked on Holy Days of Obligation. The terms of our contracts made no allowance for our attendance at Mass but there was an unwritten agreement that we might absent ourselves from the office during working hours to attend to our religious duties, without deductions from our pay. As there were many Masses in those days such absences did little damage to productivity. Garda squad cars might be seen parked outside
Churches, whilst their crews, on duty, attended Mass. Rural Post Offices had always to remain open, so a Postmistress, or Postmaster might need to miss Mass.
No such phenomenon occurred in Continental Europe, where Public Holidays and Christian Holy Days were celebrated together. The only internationally recognised Holy Day recognised by a Public Holiday in Ireland was Christmas Day. That situation survives eighty two years after the citizens enacted what Ignorant Commentators with swollen reputations tell us was a narrow, sectarian and Roman Catholic Constitution.
According to those Commentators, Irish laws on Marriage conformed to the dogmas and dictates of the Roman Catholic Church.
Those Commentators are mistaken. Two prominent Irish citizens were married “according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Roman Catholics” (as my English certificate has it) in St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Had the ceremony taken place in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral the Bridegroom would have been charged with Bigamy, and the Officiating Priest of complicity.
The Bridegroom, though baptised a Catholic as an infant, never believed, and had married, outside the fold and brought up a family. By Irish law he remained married, but by Catholic Canon Law that marriage was null and void.
The Groom was Conor Cruise O’Brien and his new bride (or first Catholic Bride) was Maire Mac an Tsaoi.
Canon Law and Irish Civil law on Marriage have since been changed.
But in deference to a Nation of Shopkeepers, Ireland still has Bank Holidays dedicated to Mammon.
With Brexit there should be no further excuse of aping the British
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