Continuation of letter sent to IRISH POST in September 1974 PLUS Postscript dated October 2019:
“These past five years (1979-1984} I have holidayed in France and have virtually circuited that secular Republic .Mass-going is a minority custom and anti-clericalism is widespread and virulent.
Each year I was there on August 15th, which the Catholic Church there, as in Ireland, designates as a Holy Day.Unlike in Ireland, the day is also a Public Holiday .Name a day, other than St Patrick’s Day, when Irish Catholics are expected to attend Mass, and you name a Public Holiday in France, Germany and Holland. Ireland needs. Peter Kellner’s British, insular British advice on how to conduct her affairs about as much as France does. It is a measure of the success of British brainwashing that Irishmen such as Mr O’Donnell should give Mr Kellner’s ill-informed musings any weight.
Donal Kennedy
London
1984″
POSTSCRIPT OCTOBER 2019 THIRTY-FIVE YEARS LATER
Within five years of writing the above piece I visited West Cork with my wife taking in places famed for various things since the days of St Finbarr. One such site was the ruins of a Franciscan church destroyed by Cromwell, the subject of Melancholic Musings by a local poet and genealogist in the 18th Century,.There’s a pub within a few yards of the ruin and my (English) wife was horrified to see a condom machine in the Ladies’ toilet.
The only constituency in the Republic to vote for the continued protection of children in the womb was Donegal, which has a sizeable Protestant community whose moral outlook is reflected by their co-religionists.
PETER KELLNER has made a career as a latter-day Nostradamus since his celebrated visit to West Cork.
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