I’ll be 81 years old when you read this.
I’ll admit that I have had doubts about the existence of a Deity and have become convinced of the existence of a Devil though I fear to attribute a gender to it. I don’t want to be blackguarded,
whiteguarded, rainbowguarded or blueshirted by the kind of zealots who malign J.K.Rowling.
On balance, I do believe in a Deity.But I am getting daily more convinced of a Super Devil. the
Father & Mother-Fabricator of Lies. Together with with Legions of Auxiliaries. Their works proliferate.
I am prompted by a column in The Irish Times -“I don’t miss the Ireland that required us to marry in secret.”
It is written by a man who married in a Dublin Registry Office because he and his spouse had ceased
to believe in God. As this was necessary for them to keep their jobs, it was a situation which cannot
recur and it is a good thing that it cannot.
The Columnist is Fintan O’Toole. I have read his columns, and those of Fergal Keane and Stephen
Collins for decades. They present as an Unholy Trinity. And I swear by what our Pagan Ancestors
and their partners held most dear that I believe in none of them individually or collectively.
I believe the words of many writers who did not believe in God. For instance, Robert Fisk, Gore Vidal.
and John Mortimer, whose memoir “Murderers and Other Friends” I have just read. And, from my own city, Dublin birthplace of Fintan O’Toole, the late Manus O’Riordan.
O’Toole invented a speech by Eamon de Valera on the burial of Roger Casement in Glasnevin in 1966.
De Valera spoke of Casement’s exposure of the atrocities in the Belgian Congo, and in Brazil. Nowhere in his speech did Dev mention Catholicism, for it had no bearing on the matter. Nor did Irish nationalism have any relevance to Casement’s Humanitarian work in those countries.
Manus O’Riordan wrote to the IRISH TIMES, putting the record straight but that paper refused to
publish it.
The letter was published in THE IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW.
A few weeks after Manus O’Riordan’s death.which occurred on 28 September 2021 I submitted the full text of a piece by Manus which had been first published in 2016 and sent me by him in November 2020.
It covered Fintan O’Toole’s attack on the Christian Burial given Kevin Barry about 100 yars after his
hanging,and Fintan’s piece on the Burial of Roger Casement 100 years after his.
THE BLOG is called
“THE IRISH TIMES AND THE REBURIAL OF KEVIN BARRY ” and was published on 16 November 2021.
Comments are closed.