Health Care in America

Americans are, above all, supposed to be pragmatists. Their test for judging any existing system or proposed solution centers on its workability. If it is functional, if it serves its purpose, everything is fine. Of course, for the pragmatist, the corollary also holds true; a system that doesn’t meet people’s needs should be changed.

The present healthcare system in the United States fails every pragmatic test. It costs much more per capita than any other Western country, yet close to fifty million people in America have no coverage at all. Also, in the crucial litmus test areas of infant mortality and longevity, the statistics for other developed countries are better than in the United States.

Why does American pragmatism tolerate such poor performance in cost and delivery? The answer seems to be mainly ideological. Most Americans are suspicious of big government solutions. And lobbyists for the private healthcare industry spend hundreds of millions every year fostering this suspicion and opposing any major change, especially if it entails more involvement by Washington.

Central to President Obama’s thinking is what he calls a public option, a choice for people to avail of a Government-sponsored health care policy. This choice would be available not only to the millions of uninsured but to anybody who is dissatisfied with his or her present coverage, with no penalty or exclusion for pre-existing conditions.

Conservatives love to quote Thomas Paine who, famously, said that “the best government is the least government!” They mostly opposed the New Deal and Just Society programs of FDR and LBJ, both of which sought to use the Federal Government to provide a basic standard of living for all citizens. Republicans, most of whom define themselves as conservatives, opposed such landmark, progressive initiatives as Social Security to cushion the elderly from dire poverty and Medicaid, a nationwide program which provides healthcare for some poor families.

Instead, they favor the provision of all – or nearly all – services by private enterprise. They believe that healthy competition between private companies, competing for business, offers the best chance of meeting nearly all society’s needs, including in the area of healthcare.

Amazingly, the main argument used by opponents of the public option is that private companies, who cover most people at present, would not be able to compete with the new, proposed Government choice. Ironically, one of the main arguments being used by Republicans, who all oppose the Obama plan, is that vibrant competition, which is espoused as a sacred dogma by all conservatives, is unfair to the established private companies in the healthcare area.

Another core belief among conservatives is that Government, especially the central Government, is always inefficient and wasteful. They love to talk about "faceless bureaucrats" dictating to people about various entitlements. Yet, most people admit that the public option will involve far fewer employees – yes, bureaucrats - and cost less by comparison with the private companies.

Medicare, a federal program, which provides hospital and doctor services for the elderly, is considered much more cost-effective and efficient than similar programs provided by private companies. Yet, proponents of change, so far, have failed to get this crucial point across to the public. Instead, the media seem to concentrate on bogus arguments about incipient socialism and alleged long waiting lines in Britain and Canada.

The healthcare debate, which is dominating the public discourse this summer, is, without doubt, the most important domestic issue facing the American body politic for many years. Passing a bill along the lines of the Obama outline proposal, including a strong public option, would be a major success for the President. Failure to get the required number of votes for passage in either house of the Congress would greatly diminish and weaken Obama’s first term. The stakes are very high.

Can the strong pragmatic tendencies in American politics trump the deep suspicions of a “big” government solution? We will see before the year is out.

Final Thoughts on the Ryan Report

Final Thoughts on the Ryan Report

A few friends have suggested to me in strong terms that I am going on too much about the Ryan Report. One woman is very angry at me for, what she sees as, bringing down the Catholic Church, and my brother in Australia opined that I am flogging a dead horse, as most of the stuff revealed by Ryan was known already.

Certainly, I have been greatly affected by the extent of the depravity that is so graphically set down by Ryan. The thought of thousands of children, with nobody in their corner, being abused by thugs, who were seemingly operating with the approval of Irish society, is shocking, beyond words. It is difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that the culture that tolerated and gave tacit approval to such outrageous behaviour was other than barbaric and corrupt.

A few last random comments on this whole sordid business.

1 Fintan O’Toole, who, in my opinion, is the most perceptive critic of Irish society, past and present, in commenting on the Ryan Report, pointed out that Irish people have a real proclivity for doublethink. He gives a brilliant example of this with the story of the woman who was asked if she believed in fairies. Her reply is a classic example of doublethink: “I don’t -- but, they are there alright!” Denying that kids were being beaten, while saying that it was probably necessary, is a central part of the sad Ryan story.

2 I was moved by the story in the Report of the Moloney family from Kilbeggan in County Westmeath. The mother died and left the father with seven young children. He was visited on a few occasions by a nun, whom they dubbed “the little nun,” urging him to allow her to take the kids to an institution where her Order would care for them. The father, to his great credit, finally chased her, while listening to her parting admonition about his irresponsibility as a parent.

3 The Mercy Sisters gave their young clients identification numbers; they were called by number, not by name. That is as heartless as it gets! These kids, from age seven up, had to make X amount of rosary beads every weekday and more on weekends. The sale of these beads allowed the Sisters to purchase a summer home for their members. The Provincial of this Order, to this day, argues publicly that, taken in the context of the time, these childcare practices were justifiable.

4 Of course, the attitudes of the times have been used to explain some of the abuses. For instance, when I was young, a common question asked of students about the school they were attending was: Are the priests, brothers or nuns tough? If the answer was affirmative, then the students were deemed to be attending a good school.

5 Patrick Pearse’s beliefs about violent revolution were widely known, and they played a big part in the culture that prevailed during the War of Independence and, later, during the Civil War. Irish Republicans of every hue felt justified and affirmed by Pearse’s philosophy of support for armed resistance. Amazingly, Pearse’s very progressive attitude to a humanistic education never counted when Republicans were in power. What Pearse correctly identified as the “murder machine” of the British education system, deteriorated into schools that terrorized young people, especially those in so-called reformatories, after independence from Britain was achieved.

6 Some commentators blamed the subservient peasant mentality, which never questioned the authority of the Catholic Church, for the disaster of these “schools.” Patrick Kavanagh’s line seems appropriate in this context: “Relieve me of my peasant roots!” Irish society certainly lacked a coterie of critical thinkers, who were casting a cold eye on their society.

7 What does the Ryan Report say about Irish attitudes to poverty? It seems that Irish culture gave undue respect to rich people, and, on the other end, the poor were deemed to be, in some way, responsible for their own plight.

8 Were there any interventions on behalf of the children by left-wing T.D.’s or eccentric clerics? Almost none! Fr. Flanagan of Boys’ Town fame heard about the Irish borstals and returned from the States to highlight the cause of the children who were being abused. He was scolded publicly for his efforts by the Minister for Education, Gerry Boland, who was supported by the Fine Gael spokesman, John Dillon. Fr. Flanagan died before he could investigate the matter further. The other Irish person who hated Industrial Schools was the founder of the Legion of Mary, Frank Duff. He regularly expressed his dislike of these schools, but he did not argue for reform publicly.

Final Thoughts on the Ryan Report

A few friends have suggested to me in strong terms that I am going on too much about the Ryan Report. One woman is very angry at me for, what she sees as, bringing down the Catholic Church, and my brother in Australia opined that I am flogging a dead horse, as most of the stuff revealed by Ryan was known already.

Certainly, I have been greatly affected by the extent of the depravity that is so graphically set down by Ryan. The thought of thousands of children, with nobody in their corner, being abused by thugs, who were seemingly operating with the approval of Irish society, is shocking, beyond words. It is difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that the culture that tolerated and gave tacit approval to such outrageous behaviour was other than barbaric and corrupt.

A few last random comments on this whole sordid business.

1 Fintan O’Toole, who, in my opinion, is the most perceptive critic of Irish society, past and present, in commenting on the Ryan Report, pointed out that Irish people have a real proclivity for doublethink. He gives a brilliant example of this with the story of the woman who was asked if she believed in fairies. Her reply is a classic example of doublethink: “I don’t -- but, they are there alright!” Denying that kids were being beaten, while saying that it was probably necessary, is a central part of the sad Ryan story.

2 I was moved by the story in the Report of the Moloney family from Kilbeggan in County Westmeath. The mother died and left the father with seven young children. He was visited on a few occasions by a nun, whom they dubbed “the little nun,” urging him to allow her to take the kids to an institution where her Order would care for them. The father, to his great credit, finally chased her, while listening to her parting admonition about his irresponsibility as a parent.

3 The Mercy Sisters gave their young clients identification numbers; they were called by number, not by name. That is as heartless as it gets! These kids, from age seven up, had to make X amount of rosary beads every weekday and more on weekends. The sale of these beads allowed the Sisters to purchase a summer home for their members. The Provincial of this Order, to this day, argues publicly that, taken in the context of the time, these childcare practices were justifiable.

4 Of course, the attitudes of the times have been used to explain some of the abuses. For instance, when I was young, a common question asked of students about the school they were attending was: Are the priests, brothers or nuns tough? If the answer was affirmative, then the students were deemed to be attending a good school.

5 Patrick Pearse’s beliefs about violent revolution were widely known, and they played a big part in the culture that prevailed during the War of Independence and, later, during the Civil War. Irish Republicans of every hue felt justified and affirmed by Pearse’s philosophy of support for armed resistance. Amazingly, Pearse’s very progressive attitude to a humanistic education never counted when Republicans were in power. What Pearse correctly identified as the “murder machine” of the British education system, deteriorated into schools that terrorized young people, especially those in so-called reformatories, after independence from Britain was achieved.

6 Some commentators blamed the subservient peasant mentality, which never questioned the authority of the Catholic Church, for the disaster of these “schools.” Patrick Kavanagh’s line seems appropriate in this context: “Relieve me of my peasant roots!” Irish society certainly lacked a coterie of critical thinkers, who were casting a cold eye on their society.

7 What does the Ryan Report say about Irish attitudes to poverty? It seems that Irish culture gave undue respect to rich people, and, on the other end, the poor were deemed to be, in some way, responsible for their own plight.

8 Were there any interventions on behalf of the children by left-wing T.D.’s or eccentric clerics? Almost none! Fr. Flanagan of Boys’ Town fame heard about the Irish borstals and returned from the States to highlight the cause of the children who were being abused. He was scolded publicly for his efforts by the Minister for Education, Gerry Boland, who was supported by the Fine Gael spokesman, John Dillon. Fr. Flanagan died before he could investigate the matter further. The other Irish person who hated Industrial Schools was the founder of the Legion of Mary, Frank Duff. He regularly expressed his dislike of these schools, but he did not argue for reform publicly.


Final Thoughts on the Ryan Report

A few friends have suggested to me in strong terms that I am going on too much about the Ryan Report. One woman is very angry at me for, what she sees as, bringing down the Catholic Church, and my brother in Australia opined that I am flogging a dead horse, as most of the stuff revealed by Ryan was known already.

Certainly, I have been greatly affected by the extent of the depravity that is so graphically set down by Ryan. The thought of thousands of children, with nobody in their corner, being abused by thugs, who were seemingly operating with the approval of Irish society, is shocking, beyond words. It is difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that the culture that tolerated and gave tacit approval to such outrageous behaviour was other than barbaric and corrupt.

A few last random comments on this whole sordid business.

1 Fintan O’Toole, who, in my opinion, is the most perceptive critic of Irish society, past and present, in commenting on the Ryan Report, pointed out that Irish people have a real proclivity for doublethink. He gives a brilliant example of this with the story of the woman who was asked if she believed in fairies. Her reply is a classic example of doublethink: “I don’t -- but, they are there alright!” Denying that kids were being beaten, while saying that it was probably necessary, is a central part of the sad Ryan story.

2 I was moved by the story in the Report of the Moloney family from Kilbeggan in County Westmeath. The mother died and left the father with seven young children. He was visited on a few occasions by a nun, whom they dubbed “the little nun,” urging him to allow her to take the kids to an institution where her Order would care for them. The father, to his great credit, finally chased her, while listening to her parting admonition about his irresponsibility as a parent.

3 The Mercy Sisters gave their young clients identification numbers; they were called by number, not by name. That is as heartless as it gets! These kids, from age seven up, had to make X amount of rosary beads every weekday and more on weekends. The sale of these beads allowed the Sisters to purchase a summer home for their members. The Provincial of this Order, to this day, argues publicly that, taken in the context of the time, these childcare practices were justifiable.

4 Of course, the attitudes of the times have been used to explain some of the abuses. For instance, when I was young, a common question asked of students about the school they were attending was: Are the priests, brothers or nuns tough? If the answer was affirmative, then the students were deemed to be attending a good school.

5 Patrick Pearse’s beliefs about violent revolution were widely known, and they played a big part in the culture that prevailed during the War of Independence and, later, during the Civil War. Irish Republicans of every hue felt justified and affirmed by Pearse’s philosophy of support for armed resistance. Amazingly, Pearse’s very progressive attitude to a humanistic education never counted when Republicans were in power. What Pearse correctly identified as the “murder machine” of the British education system, deteriorated into schools that terrorized young people, especially those in so-called reformatories, after independence from Britain was achieved.

6 Some commentators blamed the subservient peasant mentality, which never questioned the authority of the Catholic Church, for the disaster of these “schools.” Patrick Kavanagh’s line seems appropriate in this context: “Relieve me of my peasant roots!” Irish society certainly lacked a coterie of critical thinkers, who were casting a cold eye on their society.

7 What does the Ryan Report say about Irish attitudes to poverty? It seems that Irish culture gave undue respect to rich people, and, on the other end, the poor were deemed to be, in some way, responsible for their own plight.

8 Were there any interventions on behalf of the children by left-wing T.D.’s or eccentric clerics? Almost none! Fr. Flanagan of Boys’ Town fame heard about the Irish borstals and returned from the States to highlight the cause of the children who were being abused. He was scolded publicly for his efforts by the Minister for Education, Gerry Boland, who was supported by the Fine Gael spokesman, John Dillon. Fr. Flanagan died before he could investigate the matter further. The other Irish person who hated Industrial Schools was the founder of the Legion of Mary, Frank Duff. He regularly expressed his dislike of these schools, but he did not argue for reform publicly.


Final Thoughts on the Ryan Report

A few friends have suggested to me in strong terms that I am going on too much about the Ryan Report. One woman is very angry at me for, what she sees as, bringing down the Catholic Church, and my brother in Australia opined that I am flogging a dead horse, as most of the stuff revealed by Ryan was known already.

Certainly, I have been greatly affected by the extent of the depravity that is so graphically set down by Ryan. The thought of thousands of children, with nobody in their corner, being abused by thugs, who were seemingly operating with the approval of Irish society, is shocking, beyond words. It is difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that the culture that tolerated and gave tacit approval to such outrageous behaviour was other than barbaric and corrupt.

A few last random comments on this whole sordid business.

1 Fintan O’Toole, who, in my opinion, is the most perceptive critic of Irish society, past and present, in commenting on the Ryan Report, pointed out that Irish people have a real proclivity for doublethink. He gives a brilliant example of this with the story of the woman who was asked if she believed in fairies. Her reply is a classic example of doublethink: “I don’t -- but, they are there alright!” Denying that kids were being beaten, while saying that it was probably necessary, is a central part of the sad Ryan story.

2 I was moved by the story in the Report of the Moloney family from Kilbeggan in County Westmeath. The mother died and left the father with seven young children. He was visited on a few occasions by a nun, whom they dubbed “the little nun,” urging him to allow her to take the kids to an institution where her Order would care for them. The father, to his great credit, finally chased her, while listening to her parting admonition about his irresponsibility as a parent.

3 The Mercy Sisters gave their young clients identification numbers; they were called by number, not by name. That is as heartless as it gets! These kids, from age seven up, had to make X amount of rosary beads every weekday and more on weekends. The sale of these beads allowed the Sisters to purchase a summer home for their members. The Provincial of this Order, to this day, argues publicly that, taken in the context of the time, these childcare practices were justifiable.

4 Of course, the attitudes of the times have been used to explain some of the abuses. For instance, when I was young, a common question asked of students about the school they were attending was: Are the priests, brothers or nuns tough? If the answer was affirmative, then the students were deemed to be attending a good school.

5 Patrick Pearse’s beliefs about violent revolution were widely known, and they played a big part in the culture that prevailed during the War of Independence and, later, during the Civil War. Irish Republicans of every hue felt justified and affirmed by Pearse’s philosophy of support for armed resistance. Amazingly, Pearse’s very progressive attitude to a humanistic education never counted when Republicans were in power. What Pearse correctly identified as the “murder machine” of the British education system, deteriorated into schools that terrorized young people, especially those in so-called reformatories, after independence from Britain was achieved.

6 Some commentators blamed the subservient peasant mentality, which never questioned the authority of the Catholic Church, for the disaster of these “schools.” Patrick Kavanagh’s line seems appropriate in this context: “Relieve me of my peasant roots!” Irish society certainly lacked a coterie of critical thinkers, who were casting a cold eye on their society.

7 What does the Ryan Report say about Irish attitudes to poverty? It seems that Irish culture gave undue respect to rich people, and, on the other end, the poor were deemed to be, in some way, responsible for their own plight.

8 Were there any interventions on behalf of the children by left-wing T.D.’s or eccentric clerics? Almost none! Fr. Flanagan of Boys’ Town fame heard about the Irish borstals and returned from the States to highlight the cause of the children who were being abused. He was scolded publicly for his efforts by the Minister for Education, Gerry Boland, who was supported by the Fine Gael spokesman, John Dillon. Fr. Flanagan died before he could investigate the matter further. The other Irish person who hated Industrial Schools was the founder of the Legion of Mary, Frank Duff. He regularly expressed his dislike of these schools, but he did not argue for reform publicly.


Final Thoughts on the Ryan Report

A few friends have suggested to me in strong terms that I am going on too much about the Ryan Report. One woman is very angry at me for, what she sees as, bringing down the Catholic Church, and my brother in Australia opined that I am flogging a dead horse, as most of the stuff revealed by Ryan was known already.

Certainly, I have been greatly affected by the extent of the depravity that is so graphically set down by Ryan. The thought of thousands of children, with nobody in their corner, being abused by thugs, who were seemingly operating with the approval of Irish society, is shocking, beyond words. It is difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that the culture that tolerated and gave tacit approval to such outrageous behaviour was other than barbaric and corrupt.

A few last random comments on this whole sordid business.

1 Fintan O’Toole, who, in my opinion, is the most perceptive critic of Irish society, past and present, in commenting on the Ryan Report, pointed out that Irish people have a real proclivity for doublethink. He gives a brilliant example of this with the story of the woman who was asked if she believed in fairies. Her reply is a classic example of doublethink: “I don’t -- but, they are there alright!” Denying that kids were being beaten, while saying that it was probably necessary, is a central part of the sad Ryan story.

2 I was moved by the story in the Report of the Moloney family from Kilbeggan in County Westmeath. The mother died and left the father with seven young children. He was visited on a few occasions by a nun, whom they dubbed “the little nun,” urging him to allow her to take the kids to an institution where her Order would care for them. The father, to his great credit, finally chased her, while listening to her parting admonition about his irresponsibility as a parent.

3 The Mercy Sisters gave their young clients identification numbers; they were called by number, not by name. That is as heartless as it gets! These kids, from age seven up, had to make X amount of rosary beads every weekday and more on weekends. The sale of these beads allowed the Sisters to purchase a summer home for their members. The Provincial of this Order, to this day, argues publicly that, taken in the context of the time, these childcare practices were justifiable.

4 Of course, the attitudes of the times have been used to explain some of the abuses. For instance, when I was young, a common question asked of students about the school they were attending was: Are the priests, brothers or nuns tough? If the answer was affirmative, then the students were deemed to be attending a good school.

5 Patrick Pearse’s beliefs about violent revolution were widely known, and they played a big part in the culture that prevailed during the War of Independence and, later, during the Civil War. Irish Republicans of every hue felt justified and affirmed by Pearse’s philosophy of support for armed resistance. Amazingly, Pearse’s very progressive attitude to a humanistic education never counted when Republicans were in power. What Pearse correctly identified as the “murder machine” of the British education system, deteriorated into schools that terrorized young people, especially those in so-called reformatories, after independence from Britain was achieved.

6 Some commentators blamed the subservient peasant mentality, which never questioned the authority of the Catholic Church, for the disaster of these “schools.” Patrick Kavanagh’s line seems appropriate in this context: “Relieve me of my peasant roots!” Irish society certainly lacked a coterie of critical thinkers, who were casting a cold eye on their society.

7 What does the Ryan Report say about Irish attitudes to poverty? It seems that Irish culture gave undue respect to rich people, and, on the other end, the poor were deemed to be, in some way, responsible for their own plight.

8 Were there any interventions on behalf of the children by left-wing T.D.’s or eccentric clerics? Almost none! Fr. Flanagan of Boys’ Town fame heard about the Irish borstals and returned from the States to highlight the cause of the children who were being abused. He was scolded publicly for his efforts by the Minister for Education, Gerry Boland, who was supported by the Fine Gael spokesman, John Dillon. Fr. Flanagan died before he could investigate the matter further. The other Irish person who hated Industrial Schools was the founder of the Legion of Mary, Frank Duff. He regularly expressed his dislike of these schools, but he did not argue for reform publicly.

CLASS DISTINCTION AND THE RYAN REPORT

Class Distinction and the Ryan Report

The central tenet of Karl Marx’s philosophy is that all human activity emanates from prevailing economic conditions. An obvious example of this thinking can be seen worldwide in the corelation between poverty and a high crime rate.

The Irish society, which is under the microscope in the Ryan Report, was a class-ridden society. The children in the so-called industrial schools were all very poor. They came from homes that were in serious disarray; for a variety of reasons, these families lived on the margins of their communities. Keep in mind that in the years covered by the report, there were little or no welfare payments to destitute families.

It is a sad reflection on Irish society that those poor kids were blamed for their awful plight. Somehow, the poverty was deemed their parents’ fault and, by some cruel logic, responsibility for their situation, was extended to the children. This culture of blame permeated the borstals, and it was used as a rationale by the Brothers, priests and nuns, for the violent and demeaning mistreatment of the children.

The Catholic Church is a highly-hierarchical organization. The pope is at the top and he is followed by the cardinals, who elected him, to the archbishops, bishops and priests. Below the priests, were the brothers and the nuns. Finally, at the bottom, the laity was expected to follow all the directives that came from above.

In the Irish society of the Ryan Report, the bishops enjoyed exceptional power and privilege. They frequently called their houses “palaces,” and no politician dared contradict their version of what was ethical or moral. They nearly all were educated in the national seminary in Maynooth, which was and is the training college for almost all diocesan clergy.

The local parish priest and his assistant priests had great power and did not hesitate to use it in the parishes throughout the country. Then there were the priests from the various Orders, who shared the power of the altar and confessional with the diocesan clergy, but who very rarely gained one of the prized bishoprics, which were seen as spoils for the Maynooth boys. Their best chance for advancement came after years of missionary work in some foreign diocese.

Brothers and nuns were really handicapped by their lack of power to say mass or hear confession. Like the laity, they were dependent on the priest for the eucharist and the sacrament of penance. However, they had their own fiefdoms in the hospitals and the schools. They largely operated these vital institutions which provided education and hospital care throughout Ireland.

The socio-economic origins of each of these groups were very interesting and tell a lot about the various strata of Irish society. The bishops and their diocesan underlings were nearly all drawn from upper-middle or rich families. Most of the Order priests came from the lower economic echelons of their communities. However, even among the orders, there was some class distinction. For instance, the Holy Ghost Fathers and Jesuits operated the most exclusive high schools in Ireland, and many of their members came from these schools.

The Order priests often resented the dominance of the Bishops, who insisted on keeping their “lessers” in their place. About fifteen years ago, the late Cardinal O’Fiaich visited a number of dioceses in the United States, raising money for a new library in Maynooth College. I know of one diocese in the South, which has over twenty Order priests working in its parishes, where they scoffed at the idea of supporting such a project because, in the past, the low socio-economic status of their families ruled them out from even considering a career as a diocesan priest.

The Brothers also came from poor families. Often, young boys left their homes at an early age to attend juniorates that served as rather harsh training grounds for the future Brothers. For many, it was the only chance they had of a decent education. After completing their training, the various orders of Brothers offered their members a steady job in the respected teaching profession, with no worry about adequate food or retirement benefits.

What about the nuns? There was also a definite pecking order among the many congregations of Sisters. Some orders kept the “riff-raff” out by insisting on a family contribution or dowry from the entrant’s family. The Reverend Mother was a powerful person in many Irish communities, but everyone knew that, in any crunch, the real power resided with the bishops, appointed by a Vatican bureaucracy that had no place for women.

A few days ago, Fr. Vincent Twomey, a prominent theologian who studied under the present pope – presumably, a mark of distinction that gives his words extra credibility – spoke on the BBC about the Church crisis. He said that many of the Brothers, priests and nuns, who perpetrated the abuse in the so-called reformatories, came from big, very poor families, where it seemed a good idea to encourage one or more to opt for the safe haven of the religious life.

He went on to say that, presumably unlike the priests who came from better-off backgrounds, the abusers were “monsters,” “the dregs of society.” They did not have real vocations!

I find his logic very unconvincing. Of course, there were economic considerations in the decisions of so many to become religious Brothers or priests, but to blame the crisis on big families, somehow described as societal dregs, makes no sense, unless we say that all the members of these orders from poor backgrounds were corrupt. And, what is he saying about the integrity and genuine Catholic religious culture of so many large Irish families?

Also, Fr. Twomey should explain how the diocesan clergy all over Ireland had so many child abusers among their members. Very soon, we will have another devastating report about flagrant child abuse by clergy, who worked in the Dublin diocese during the last fifty years.

The abuse of power is at the heart of the Ryan Report, the abuse of powerless children from poor backgrounds by the established authorities of church and state. The Catholic Church must explain how priests and bishops knew – or didn’t want to know – about the terrorizing of children in Catholic institutions and why every last one of them said nothing. It is a well-established moral principle that those who remain silent in the face of evil behaviour share in the guilt for that evil behaviour. Qui tacit consentire videtur. That is the question that Professor Twomey must address.
Class Distinction and the Ryan Report

The central tenet of Karl Marx’s philosophy is that all human activity emanates from prevailing economic conditions. An obvious example of this thinking can be seen worldwide in the corelation between poverty and a high crime rate.

The Irish society, which is under the microscope in the Ryan Report, was a class-ridden society. The children in the so-called industrial schools were all very poor. They came from homes that were in serious disarray; for a variety of reasons, these families lived on the margins of Irish society. Keep in mind that in the years covered by the report, there were little or no welfare payments to destitute families.

It is a sad reflection on Irish society that those poor kids were blamed for their awful plight. Somehow, the poverty was their parents’ fault and, by some cruel logic, responsibility for their situation, was extended to the children. This culture of blame permeated the borstals, and it was used as a rationale by the Brothers, priests and nuns, for the violent and demeaning mistreatment of the children.

The Catholic Church is a highly-hierarchical organization. The pope is at the top and he is followed by the cardinals, who elected him, to the archbishops, bishops and priests. Below the priests, were the brothers and the nuns. Finally, at the bottom, the laity was expected to follow all the directives that came from above.

In the Irish society of the Ryan Report, the bishops enjoyed exceptional power and privilege. They frequently called their houses “palaces,” and no politician dared contradict their version of what was ethical or moral. They nearly all were educated in the national seminary in Maynooth, which was and is the training college for almost all diocesan clergy.

The local parish priest and his assistant priests had great power and did not hesitate to use it in the parishes throughout the country. Then there were the priests from the various orders, who shared the power of the altar and confessional with the diocesan clergy, but who very rarely gained one of the prized bishoprics, which were seen as spoils for the Maynooth boys. Their best chance for advancement came after years of missionary work in some foreign diocese.

Brothers and nuns were really handicapped by their lack of power to say mass or hear confession. Like the laity, they were dependent on the priest for the eucharist and the sacrament of penance. However, they had their own fiefdoms in the hospitals and the schools. They largely operated these vital institutions which provided education and hospital care throughout Ireland.

The socio-economic origins of each of these groups were very interesting and tell a lot about the various strata of Irish society. The bishops and their diocesan underlings were nearly all drawn from upper-middle or rich families. Most of the Order priests came from the lower economic echelons of their communities. However, even among the orders, there was some class distinction. For instance, the Holy Ghost Fathers and Jesuits operated the most exclusive high schools in Ireland, and many of their members came from these schools.

The Order priests often resented the dominance of the Bishops, who insisted on keeping their “lessers” in their place. About fifteen years ago, the late Cardinal O’Fiaich visited a number of dioceses in the United States, raising money for a new library in Maynooth College. I know of one diocese in the South, which has over twenty Order priests working in its parishes, where they scoffed at the idea of supporting such a project because, in the past, the low socio-economic status of their families ruled them out from considering a career as a diocesan priest.

The Brothers also came from poor families. Often, young boys left their homes at an early age to attend juniorates that served as rather harsh training grounds for the future Brothers. For many, it was the only chance they had of a decent education. After completing their training, the various orders of Brothers offered their members a steady job in the respected teaching profession, with no worry about adequate food or retirement benefits.

What about the nuns? There was also a definite pecking order among the many congregations of Sisters. Some orders kept the “riff-raff” out by insisting on a family contribution or dowry from the entrant’s family. The Reverend Mother was a powerful person in many Irish communities, but everyone knew that, in any crunch, the real power resided with the bishops, appointed by a Vatican bureaucracy that had no place for women.

A few days ago, Fr. Vincent Twomey, a prominent theologian who studied under the present pope – presumably, a mark of distinction that gives his words extra credibility – spoke on the BBC about the Church crisis. He said that many of the Brothers, priests and nuns, who perpetrated the abuse in the so-called reformatories, came from big, very poor families, where it seemed a good idea to encourage one or more to opt for the safe haven of the religious life.

He went on to say that, presumably unlike the priests who came from better-off backgrounds, the abusers were “monsters,” “the dregs of society.” They did not have real vocations!

I find his logic very unconvincing. Of course, there were economic considerations in the decisions of so many to become religious Brothers or priests, but to blame the crisis on big families, somehow societal dregs, makes no sense, unless we say that all the members of these orders from poor backgrounds were corrupt. And, what is he saying about the integrity and genuine Catholic religious culture of so many large Irish families?

Also, Fr. Twomey should explain how the diocesan clergy in all dioceses in Ireland had so many child abusers among their members, who came from a different socio-economic group. Any day now, we will have another devastating report about flagrant child abuse by clergy, who worked in the Dublin diocese during the last fifty years.

The abuse of power is at the heart of the Ryan Report. The Catholic Church must explain how priests and bishops knew – or didn’t want to know – about the terrorizing of children in Catholic institutions and why every last one of them said nothing. Qui tacit consentire videtur. That is the question that Professor Twomey must address.

THE RYAN REPORT

THE RYAN REPORT

Thousands of children suffered physical and sexual abuse in residential care centers run by various religious orders over several decades in Ireland. The abuse was endemic and was perpetrated in over fifty locations throughout the twenty- six counties.

The types of abuse included flogging, starving, sexual abuse and all kinds of humiliations. Children with a bed wetting problem were often made stand naked in the cold, outside the building, and in one reported case a nun dealt with this problem by forcing the young girl’s face on to the stained underwear.

What were the children in these reformatories guilty of ? What did they do to deserve this horrible treatment? Some were orphans; others had a poor attendance record at school. All were needy kids from marginalized families, where, for instance, the mother could not cope financially or the father was a drunk. These were all very vulnerable children.

The extensive report on these institutions cost over 100 million dollars to complete, and nobody is saying that it exaggerates the extent or the severity of the physical and sexual abuse that innocent children suffered. Judge Ryan and his team of researchers listened to stories from over a thousand "graduates" of these reformatory schools, and his report is replete with stories of terror and intimidation.

The Soviet gulags could scarcely match the level of abuse and deprivation inflicted on these young children. The report speaks of the "pathetic gratitude response" from the kids when even the slightest compassion was shown by anyone in authority. One girl recalled how she was so delighted when she got a piece of candy from a nurse that she held on to it as a reminder that someone actually noticed her and thought she was important enough to be given a gift.

How did this happen that the most vulnerable members of Irish society, young children, were systematically mistreated in institutions owned and mostly staffed by priests and religious brothers and nuns? The finger of disgrace and blame points in a number of directions.

Each religious order has its own charism, the special spiritual perspective that, supposedly, sets it apart from the others. However, they all share a commitment to gospel values, to the teachings of Jesus Christ. To help them advance these values, they all attend mass every day and engage in various community rituals and prayers that focus on personal spiritual growth.

Yet, these are the people from all these Orders, people who claimed a special charism for childcare, who turned these reformatory schools into corners of hell for the young children they were supposed to serve. We are not talking here about occasional breaches of proper behaviour by " a few bad apples;" the report makes abundantly clear that the abuse was systemic and endemic.

How can we explain the vice and corruption that permeated religious communities of men and women in all parts of the 26 - county state for more than 50 years? That question cries out for some kind of an answer. Judge Ryan mentions that the Rosminian Order conceded that the revelations had led them to a serious examination of why their members engaged in or tolerated such awful behaviour. The other Orders are still offering grudging apologies or vague rationalizations about their despicable behaviour.

The children who were abused shared one common characteristic; they were all poor. To be more precise, they came from dirt poor families, who could fairly be described as destitute. Unfortunately, these vulnerable kids were blamed for their terrible predicament. They "deserved" to be treated like – well, dirt. This outlook gave the men and women, wearing crucifixes and touting rosary beads, permission to treat the children in their care as sub-human. First and foremost, the way these kids were treated was a terrible abuse of power.


The institutional Catholic Church, led by the bishops, pastors whose first obligation was supposed to be to the poor, must have known about the goings-on in these "schools." Not one bishop or priest spoke out against the pandemic of abuse, not even one called for some kind of an investigation. Actually, Fr. Flanagan of Boys’ Town fame did hear in the United States about the abuse in Ireland and tried to intervene. He was told where to go by the authorities of Church and State, and, unfortunately, he died before he could investigate the situation further.

The inspectorate in the Department of Education disgraced themselves by writing reports that all was well in these institutions, where the children were being whipped and starved. By contrast, their counterparts in Northern Ireland insisted on humane treatment for the children, who were housed there in similar Catholic or Protestant reformatories.

So, we have the amazing situation, for instance, of tyrannical Brothers working in the South, who had to behave themselves when they worked in their Order’s reformatories in the North where the British had jurisdiction. In fact, prior to 1922, when the laws for Ireland were made and implemented by Westminster governments, poor Irish children had a much better chance of humane treatment than when they depended on Dublin governments for protection.

The Irish people who tolerated this awful and outrageous abuse of power by these male and female religious cannot be excused of some responsibility for the evil in their midst. Irish culture allowed anyone with a clerical garb to do as they liked. This was a fatal flaw in the Irish people, resulting in unspeakable behaviour against children, who had nobody on their side, nobody to speak for them.

One woman in Dublin, responding to this damning report was quoted in the Irish Times as saying "I am deeply, deeply ashamed of being Catholic and Irish." So am I!



.

THE PURISTS

THE PURISTS

Arlan Specter, the senator from Pennsylvania, recently left the Republican Party and joined the Democratic caucus in the Senate. He was assured by President Obama and others that they will do their best to ensure he will be unopposed in Pennsylvania as the Democratic nominee in the Senate election that is due in a few months.

In explaining his departure from the Republican Party, he said that his old party has become captive to right-wing ideologues, who demand strict adherence to their narrow agenda. His colleague from Maine, Senator Olympia Snowe, supported this contention in an op-ed article in The New York Times. She argued that the Reagan "big tent " philosophy, where people with widely differing views are welcome, is no longer accepted in her party.

In last year’s presidential election, the Republican nominee, John McCain, wanted Joe Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut, as his running mate. Lieberman was campaigning for him, but his liberal views on some social issues made him completely unacceptable to the conservative base of the GOP, so, he was ruled out and McCain, seemingly in a fit of pique, chose Sara Palin, who was and is a darling of the Right, but who was clearly out of her depth in dealing with the big issues in the presidential campaign.

The Taliban and Al’Qaeda share strong fundamentalist beliefs about what constitutes a truly Islamic government. For instance, they insist that women must be completely subservient to men. Any woman who dares to breach their harsh, outmoded rules, is severely punished. There is only one way to behave, and that is laid down by the male elders, who are following their traditional interpretation of the Koran.

The history of Irish Republicanism provides an excellent example of people attempting to follow dogmatic tenets. In the Irish Civil War, the Republicans, led by De Valera, rejected the democratic Dail vote, accepting the treaty, because, they said that it breached their core beliefs. In particular, the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown was seen as completely unacceptable. However, before ten years had elapsed, most of the Civil War Republicans agreed to take the despised oath.

A minority held out on this issue of principle and engaged in a futile mini-war in both sides of the Border against the new State and British-controlled Northern Ireland. Following their core Republican beliefs, they refused to recognize the legitimacy of the governments in Dublin or Westminster.

The Unionist leaders in Northern Ireland had their own hardened belief system. Central to their political creed was the conviction that no nationalist could be trusted, and, so, Catholics were consigned to second-class citizenship. Any Unionist leader who showed a willingness to change, even slightly, this neantherdal mindframe was quickly dismissed, in favour of a thorough not-an-inch hardliner.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA has ended its military campaign, and the Republican leadership has embraced an internal solution, involving their participation in a government in Stormont. Predictably, there are now two small militant groups, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, who accuse their former colleagues of treachery because they have settled for less than the Republican ideal of a united Ireland.

I was a member of the Irish Labour Party for ten years from the mid-seventies. There was a strong internal group, who called themselves The Militant Tendency, which argued that the Party should pursue a clear left-wing agenda and stay away from coalition governments with, what they considered, right-wing parties.

They presented a strong but rather tendentious case for offering only pure socialist policies to the Irish electorate. The mainstream members of the Party, including nearly all the elected representatives, preferred to work for gradual improvements in crucial areas like education and healthcare.

In a recent letter my poet-friend in Venezuela, John Sweeney, pointed out that he is very suspicious of dogmatists in any area of life who see themselves as "owners of the truth." In a democracy, it is important that all perspectives on the various issues be respected. Ideological purity is not a real option. Compromise is not a dirty word, but an important skill that must be valued.

I shrink from the absolutists who say that they have the complete revealed truth about God, that their church or tribe alone has all the answers. In their world, there is no shade of gray. They have the answers to all social, political and religious questions. All the other tribes or churches are wrong. End of story! By comparison, I am convinced that in asssessing human behaviour, gray is the dominant colour, that Edmond Burke got it right when he wrote: Every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act is founded on compromise and barter.



THE PURISTS

Arlan Specter, the senator from Pennsylvania, recently left the Republican Party and joined the Democratic caucus in the Senate. He was assured by President Obama and others that they will ensure he will be unopposed in Pennsylvania as the Democratic nominee in the Senate election that is due in a few months.

In explaining his departure from the Republican Party, he said that his old party has become captive to right-wing ideologues, who demand strict adherence to their narrow agenda. His colleague from Maine, Senator Olympia Snowe, supported this contention in an op-ed article in The New York Times. She argued that the Reagan "big tent " philosophy, where people with widely differing views are welcome, is no longer accepted in her party.

In last year’s presidential election, the Republican nominee, John McCain, wanted Joe Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut, as his running mate. Lieberman was campaigning for him, but his liberal views on some social issues made him completely unacceptable to the conservative base of the GOP, so, he was ruled out and McCain, seemingly in a fit of pique, chose Sara Palin, who was and is a darling of the Right, but who was clearly out of her depth in dealing with the big issues in the presidential campaign.

The Taliban and Al’Qaeda share strong fundamentalist beliefs about what constitutes a truly Islamic government. For instance, they insist that women must be completely subservient to men. Any woman who dares to breach their harsh, outmoded rules, is severely punished. There is only one way to behave, and that is laid down by the male elders, who are following their traditional interpretation of the Koran.

The history of Irish Republicanism provides an excellent example of people attempting to follow dogmatic tenets. In the Irish Civil War, the Republicans, led by De Valera, rejected the democratic Dail vote, accepting the treaty, because, they said that it breached their core beliefs. In particular, the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown was seen as completely unacceptable. However, before ten years had elapsed, most of the Civil War Republicans agreed to take the despised oath.

A minority held out on this issue of principle and engaged in a futile mini-war in both sides of the Border against the new State and British-controlled Northern Ireland. Following their core Republican beliefs, they refused to recognize the legitimacy of the governments in Dublin or Westminster.

The Unionist leaders in Northern Ireland had their own hardened belief system. Central to their political creed was the conviction that no nationalist could be trusted, and, so, Catholics were consigned to second-class citizenship. Any Unionist leader who showed a willingness to change, even slightly, this neantherdal mindframe was quickly dismissed, in favour of a thorough not-an-inch hardliner.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA has ended its military campaign, and the Republican leadership has embraced an internal solution, involving their participation in a government in Stormont. Predictably, there are now two small militant groups, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, who accuse their former colleagues of treachery because they have settled for less than the Republican ideal of a united Ireland.

I was a member of the Irish Labour Party for ten years from the mid-seventies. There was a strong internal group, who called themselves The Militant Tendency, which argued that the Party should pursue a clear left-wing agenda and stay away from coalition governments with, what they considered, right-wing parties.

They presented a strong but rather tendentious case for offering only pure socialist policies to the Irish electorate. The mainstream members of the Party, including nearly all the elected representatives, preferred to work for gradual improvements in crucial areas like education and healthcare.

In a recent letter my poet-friend in Venezuela, John Sweeney, pointed out that he is very suspicious of dogmatists in any area of life who see themselves as "owners of the truth." In a democracy, it is important that all perspectives on the various issues be respected. Ideological purity is not a real option. Compromise is not a dirty word, but an important skill that must be valued.

I shrink from the absolutists who say that they have the truth about God, that their church or tribe alone has all the answers. In their world, there is no shade of gray. They have the answers to all social, political and religious questions. All the other tribes or churches are wrong. End of story! By comparison, I am convinced that Edmond Burke got it right when he wrote: Every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act is founded on compromise and barter.



THE PURISTS

Arlan Specter, the senator from Pennsylvania, recently left the Republican Party and joined the Democratic caucus in the Senate. He was assured by President Obama and others that they will ensure he will be unopposed in Pennsylvania as the Democratic nominee in the Senate election that is due in a few months.

In explaining his departure from the Republican Party, he said that his old party has become captive to right-wing ideologues, who demand strict adherence to their narrow agenda. His colleague from Maine, Senator Olympia Snowe, supported this contention in an op-ed article in The New York Times. She argued that the Reagan "big tent " philosophy, where people with widely differing views are welcome, is no longer accepted in her party.

In last year’s presidential election, the Republican nominee, John McCain, wanted Joe Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut, as his running mate. Lieberman was campaigning for him, but his liberal views on some social issues made him completely unacceptable to the conservative base of the GOP, so, he was ruled out and McCain, seemingly in a fit of pique, chose Sara Palin, who was and is a darling of the Right, but who was clearly out of her depth in dealing with the big issues in the presidential campaign.

The Taliban and Al’Qaeda share strong fundamentalist beliefs about what constitutes a truly Islamic government. For instance, they insist that women must be completely subservient to men. Any woman who dares to breach their harsh, outmoded rules, is severely punished. There is only one way to behave, and that is laid down by the male elders, who are following their traditional interpretation of the Koran.

The history of Irish Republicanism provides an excellent example of people attempting to follow dogmatic tenets. In the Irish Civil War, the Republicans, led by De Valera, rejected the democratic Dail vote, accepting the treaty, because, they said that it breached their core beliefs. In particular, the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown was seen as completely unacceptable. However, before ten years had elapsed, most of the Civil War Republicans agreed to take the despised oath.

A minority held out on this issue of principle and engaged in a futile mini-war in both sides of the Border against the new State and British-controlled Northern Ireland. Following their core Republican beliefs, they refused to recognize the legitimacy of the governments in Dublin or Westminster.

The Unionist leaders in Northern Ireland had their own hardened belief system. Central to their political creed was the conviction that no nationalist could be trusted, and, so, Catholics were consigned to second-class citizenship. Any Unionist leader who showed a willingness to change, even slightly, this neantherdal mindframe was quickly dismissed, in favour of a thorough not-an-inch hardliner.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA has ended its military campaign, and the Republican leadership has embraced an internal solution, involving their participation in a government in Stormont. Predictably, there are now two small militant groups, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, who accuse their former colleagues of treachery because they have settled for less than the Republican ideal of a united Ireland.

I was a member of the Irish Labour Party for ten years from the mid-seventies. There was a strong internal group, who called themselves The Militant Tendency, which argued that the Party should pursue a clear left-wing agenda and stay away from coalition governments with, what they considered, right-wing parties.

They presented a strong but rather tendentious case for offering only pure socialist policies to the Irish electorate. The mainstream members of the Party, including nearly all the elected representatives, preferred to work for gradual improvements in crucial areas like education and healthcare.

In a recent letter my poet-friend in Venezuela, John Sweeney, pointed out that he is very suspicious of dogmatists in any area of life who see themselves as "owners of the truth." In a democracy, it is important that all perspectives on the various issues be respected. Ideological purity is not a real option. Compromise is not a dirty word, but an important skill that must be valued.

I shrink from the absolutists who say that they have the truth about God, that their church or tribe alone has all the answers. In their world, there is no shade of gray. They have the answers to all social, political and religious questions. All the other tribes or churches are wrong. End of story! By comparison, I am convinced that Edmond Burke got it right when he wrote: Every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act is founded on compromise and barter.

TOM MALONE

TOM MALONE

The American and French Revolutions at the end of the 18th century ushered in a new era, the beginning of modern history. The Old Order, where political and economic power was confined to a small elite, was swept aside by the huge upheavals in France and America.

These seismic changes in the power structures, in what we now call Western countries, can also be seen in the art and literature of the post-revolutionary period. In England, the Romantic poets – Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Byron – were breaking new ground in content and style.

Their credo was encapsulated by Wordsworth and Coleridge in their introduction to Lyrical Ballads in 1798. They said that they were committed to writing in simple words about the beauties of nature, stressing the pre-eminent importance of imagination in the human quest for wisdom and truth. There were also strong democratic tendencies in their writing; they espoused the cause of the common man.

The Romantic Hero was different from the person who distinguished himself in war, business or politics. Instead, he tended to be an eccentric figure, guided by different values than those shared by the general populace. I wrote about one such example, the Scholar Gypsy, in a recent blog. Arnold’s gypsy rejected the comfortable university life in Oxford, and, instead, devoted himself to a lifelong search for wisdom in the lore of a group of outsiders, of wanderers, whose lifestyle was denigrated by most people.

All of this was going through my mind when a friend, who lives in Venezuela, John Sweeney, sent me a poem that he wrote about Tom Malone, a beggar man that he knew when he was young in Ireland, more than fifty years ago. John was a missionary priest in Venezuela in the 70’s when he decided to leave that line of work after falling in love with a local woman. They are now proud grandparents, and John is a retired teacher in that country.

He was born in Kilgarvan, less than ten miles away from where I grew up, and I remember seeing Tom Malone in my town, Kenmare, when I was in my early teens. He was a tall imposing man, with a rather long beard, dressed in black. He was different from other beggars insofar as he spoke with authority on various topics, did not frequent the pubs and expected the local men to give him a few shillings, not the usual pennies that a beggar would be glad to pocket.

He had certain houses where he would stay as he moved around within a radius of about forty miles in the mountainy region that stretches from the Kenmare area of South Kerry into Bantry in West Cork. He never stayed in my family’s house; however, my younger brother, Michael, has a clear memory of him coming by for a cup of tea or a bowl of soup, on a few occasions. Tom was born in Coolea, near Macroom, in County Cork to a settled family, but he was so broken-hearted, so deeply hurt, by his mother’s death, when he was sixteen, that he never again returned to his home.

Instead, he chose the life of a rover. He would surely qualify, using Wordsworth’s definition, as a Romantic figure, an eccentric seeker, a restless soul who lived his life tramping from place to place, looking for some meaning to life.

The following is John Sweeney’s fine poem about Tom Malone.

I am Tom Malone, I walk alone, along my lonely way,
I got no house, no chick nor child, no garden, oats nor hay,
I know the clouds, the wind, the rain, as I walk my lonely road,
For fifty years I have traveled it, with ne’er a fixed abode.


In a little house beyond Coolea, my mother gave me birth,
She cradled me and she cuddled me in the crib beside the hearth,
But the Good Lord took her from me when I was just sixteen,
I left her in the churchyard and I left behind my dream.


I never more went near that house. It was no longer home,
Both love and joy had left it, and my fate it was to roam,
The pain was deep within me, I had to go away,
I faced the West, I walked all night and all the following day.


The road is long, it stretches on, beyond the heather bog,
The rain comes down, the wind is sharp, I stumble through the fog.
Of why I go, I’ll never know as I pass by rock and tree,
I hear a voice from other lands, and the road keeps calling me.


I slept last night in Lounahan, where I’ve been often fed,
And now I’m off to Gornaskea where I’ll find a feather bed,
I’ll sup my tay and puff my pipe and I’ll watch the coals grow red,
While I talk to Tomas Laidir of the living and the dead.


We’ll talk of those who have gone ahead to the land beyond the sky,
And of those who’ve left their native home in a foreign land to lie,
And of drunken Mike who slept all night at the mouth of a badger’s den,
And how Doctor Tadgh cured the old bay mare with the blood of a hatching hen.


We’ll think and talk the night away, and then we’ll wonder why,
The snail is made to crawl the earth and the bird is made to fly.
Of why there’s some who dress in rags while others wear a crown,
Of why the smoke goes up the hill and why the fog comes down.


The night moves on, I’ll tell old Tom what I heard from Con Cabog
‘Tis how the rainbow’s black and white to the West of Tir na Nog,
Of the leprechaun with whooping cough that he heard in Tory’s Lis,
And Big Jack Hyde who was crucified by the Borlin banshee’s kiss.


The night is done, we’ve had our fun; it’s time to hit the hay,
We’ll rake the fire and quench the lamp, there comes another day,
The road it calls, I’ll cross the top, go round another bend,
Until I meet the Lord above and reach my journey’s end.

WAITING FOR GODOT

Waiting for Godot

I first experienced Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot many years ago when I was attending University College Dublin. It was a really memorable experience.

Prior to college, in my younger years, I never missed drama productions by local or visiting theatrical groups in my home area in County Kerry. I even participated, without distinction, in a few dramatic efforts during my high school years. Many of the plays were written from a strictly nationalist or narrow Catholic perspective, which appealed to the Irish rural population fifty or so years ago.

Beckett’s Godot was a completely new experience from attending a traditional play, where the audience would see a narrative drama enacted, with a beginning, a middle and an end. It would be a story about human emotions, involving people dealing with love or hate or jealousy or some other aspect of the human condition. The best performers drew us into their world of tears and laughter, while we wondered how the third act would end. By comparison, Waiting for Godot has a minimal story line; it deals with two tramps on a barren stage waiting for a guy who vaguely promised that he would visit them.

While they are waiting, they eat, sleep, fart, argue, swap hats – anything, as Didi says "to hold the terrible silence at bay." They worry about how to pass the time, although they have great difficulty establishing any time frame. Yesterday and tomorrow blend into a perpetual present moment. They agree that they will spend the rest of their lives doing nothing!

Beckett clearly was not interested in dealing with heroes and scoundrels, the meat for so much Shakespearean drama, but rather in exploring the inherent angst, the inevitable anguish, of the human condition. In this world, we are confronted by the emptiness and meaninglessness of life. Waiting for Godot is a great example of what is commonly called The Theatre of the Absurd.


The second time I saw the play was in a university playhouse in Brooklyn, shortly after I immigrated to New York. I was accompanied by my then girlfriend, Aileen, who thought it was the most boring play she ever saw and who assured me that the Antarctic would melt before she would ever again go near a Beckett play! She has been true to her word in that promise!

A few months ago, my oldest daughter, Siobhan, much to her mother’s disgust, booked tickets for the two of us for the Roundabout Theatre production of Waiting for Godot, and, last week, we attended the play together. The actors were superb, true to the high standards we expect in a Broadway production, and all aspects of the staging were excellent. Still, quite a few people did not return for the second act, suggesting that Aileen is not the only one with a poor opinion of this wonderful play.

Siobhan and I talked a lot about our reactions to the Roundabout experience. We wondered what the play is really about. Is Beckett challenging us to focus on how our lives are often built around our hopes and dreams for tomorrow – for success, for winning the lotto, for anything that will enhance our paltry existence? Is he saying that our existence is defined by waiting, which, many people say, is the central theme of the play?

Or, we wondered, is the play about this strange character, Godot? He never arrives on stage, but he does send a child twice to say that he hopes to come the following day. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!! There is a strong sense that this mysterious figure would never come, even if the play had ten acts. Didi and his good friend, Gogo, the two main characters, know very little about this man and, they are very unclear about what he can do for them – even if he does arrive.

Perhaps, Beckett was inviting his audience to focus on the futile way that people, throughout history, have looked for a hero, a superman, a saviour, a Godot who would make sense of the absurdity of life for them. Maybe, he was suggesting that we look in another direction, and, definitely not to any outside individual, for salvation and meaning.


foWaitingr Godot

I first experienced Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot many years ago when I was attending University College Dublin. It was a really memorable experience.

Prior to college, in my younger years, I never missed drama productions by local or visiting theatrical groups in my home area in County Kerry. I even participated, without distinction, in a few dramatic efforts during my high school years. Many of the plays were written from a strictly nationalist or narrow Catholic perspective, which appealed to the Irish rural population fifty or so years ago.

Beckett’s Godot was a completely new experience from attending a traditional play, where the audience would see a narrative enacted, with a beginning, a middle and an end. It would be a story about human emotions, involving people dealing with love or hate or jealousy or some other aspect of the human condition. The best performers drew us into their world of tears and laughter, while we wondered how the third act would end. By comparison, Waiting for Godot has a minimal story line; itdeals with two tramps on a barren stage waiting for a guy who vaguely promised that he would visit them.

While they are waiting, they eat, sleep, fart, argue, swap hats – anything, as Didi says "to hold the terrible silence at bay." They worry about how to pass the time, although they have great difficulty establishing any time frame. Yesterday and tomorrow blend into a perpetual present moment. They agree that they will spend the rest of their lives doing nothing!

Beckett clearly was not interested in dealing with heroes and scoundrels, the meat for so much Shakespearean drama, but rather in exploring the inevitable anguish of the human condition. In this Beckettian world, we are confronted by the emptiness and meaninglessness of life. Waiting for Godot is a great example of what is commonly called The Theatre of the Absurd.


The second time I saw the play was in a university playhouse in Brooklyn, shortly after I immigrated to New York. I was accompanied by my then girlfriend, Aileen, who thought it was the most boring play she ever saw and who assured me that the Antarctic would melt before she would ever again go near a Beckett play! She has been true to her word in that promise!

A few months ago, my oldest daughter, Siobhan, much to her mother’s disgust, booked tickets for the two of us for the Roundabout Theatre production of Waiting for Godot, and, last week, we attended the play together. The actors were superb, true to the high standards we expect in a Broadway production, and all aspects of the staging were excellent. Still, quite a few people did not return for the second act, suggesting that Aileen is not the only one with a poor opinion of this wonderful play.

Siobhan and I talked a lot about our reactions to our Roundabout experience. We wondered what the play is really about. Is Beckett challenging us to focus on how our lives are often built around our hopes and dreams for tomorrow – for success, for winning the lotto, for anything that will enhance our paltry existence? Is he saying that our existence is defined by waiting, which, for many people, is the central theme of the play?

Or, we wondered, is the play about this strange character, Godot? He never arrives on stage, but he does send a child twice to say that he hopes to come the following day. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!! There is a sense that this mysterious figure would never come, even if the play had ten acts. Didi and his good friend, Gogo, the two main characters, know very little about this man and, they are very unclear about what he can do for them – even if he does arrive.

Perhaps, Beckett was inviting his audience to focus on the futile way that people, throughout history, have looked for a hero, a superman, a saviour, a Godot who would make sense of the absurdity of life for them. Maybe, he was suggesting that we look in another direction, and, definitely not to any outside individual, for salvation and meaning.