Textbook Saint Patrick – Myles from the truth
In honour of the week that’s in it, I have decided to toss aside all those fancy, foreign books I have been reading of late and revisit the canon of a writer who was not afraid to take risks back when it really meant putting your head on the block if you even entertained the merest brush with something mildly approaching risqué. Indeed, the block is fresh in my mind having recently visited the Pearse Museum in Rathfarnham, which boasts as one of its exhibits, the roughly hewn butcher’s block on which, apparently, Robert Emmet lost his head.
Anyway, such written malfeasance (in the eyes of many church and state moguls) was tantamount to heresy, not to mention corrupting the simple and abject masses. If said simple and abject masses were unable to detect the wickedness deeply buried in hyperbole, ambiguity or, dare I say it, a dash of post-colonialism, there were plenty of ‘officials’ who would do it on their behalf; that is, take fine pieces of work by perceived foreign deviants like, say, Graham Greene, Kingsley Amis, Tennessee Williams or Aldous Huxley, read the blank spaces between the written lines, and manufacture a grievous misdemeanour against God and Mother Ireland. It was then the duty of every right thinking citizen to be outraged at the content of a work they had not read and whose contents had been interpreted for them by critical elucidators who, oddly, had not read it either but still managed to construe it as blasphemous or libellous.
Most Irish authors worth reading – Brendan Behan, John McGahern, Frank O’Connor, Benedict Kiely (to name but a few) were banned – the very idea of reading one of their books was considered most egregious in mid-twentieth century Ireland. You have to admire then, authors like Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh who managed to survive in that literary quagmire, and of course Sean O’Faoláin as editor of The Bell who provided a voice for braver writers struggling to make their art in Ireland at this time. Oddly enough, Joyce’s Ulysses was never banned; in this case the government used a customs loophole which prevented it from occupying good shelf space in Irish homes and libraries. Absurdly, the population of Ireland was one big vicarious censor just like today it is one big vicarious banker.
In Ireland of 2015 it’s all very well to be lyrically outraged by the relative awfulness that was Ireland in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties when you are preaching to the converted and nobody is going to slap you or condemn you to the fiery pit. Imagine the accumulating fifty shades of wrath ranging from pleasant pink to apoplectic puce if you transferred the cultural landscape of 2015 Ireland back to, say, the Ireland of 1955? Hence my longstanding Platonic love affair with Flann O’Brien, although for present purposes I am remembering his journalistic alter ego, Myles na gCopaleen and his chaotically manicured Cruiskeen Lawn. I allude in particular to a witticism pertaining to our national saint. It starts with the inauguration of an eminent seat of learning.
The Institute for Advanced Studies was established by Eamon De Valera in 1940 comprising the School of Theoretical Physics and the School of Celtic Studies. Nobel laureate Professor Erwin Schroedinger was the first director of the School of Theoretical Physics. Shortly after his appointment he gave an address to the Institute entitled ‘Science and Humanism’, an address which was interpreted by na gCopaleen to mean that there is no logical basis for the belief in a First Cause.
Distinguished Celtic scholar, Professor T. F. O’Rahilly became director of the School of Celtic Studies in 1942 and he had a theory about the origins of our national saint. He believed that two separate missionaries Palladius and Patrick, had been confused as one figure. As you can see, a cauldron of uncertainty was bubbling over on Merrion Square, and this pot boiler did not escape the Myles na gCopaleen treatment. ‘A friend has drawn my attention to Professor O’Rahilly’s recent address on ‘Palladius and Patrick’. I understand also that Professor Schroedinger has been proving lately that you cannot establish a first cause. The first fruit of the Institute therefore, has been an effort to show that there are two Saint Patricks and no God. The propagation of heresy and unbelief has nothing to do with polite learning, and unless we are careful this Institute of ours will make us the laughing stock of the world.’
The Directorate of the Institute sued the Irish Times who agreed to pay £100 in damages in an out of court settlement. Incidentally, only £50 was ever paid.
In more recent times, 2012 to be exact, Doctor Roy Flechner, from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge University conducted research which points to the possibility that Saint Patrick might have been a reluctant tax collector for the Romans, who fled to Ireland rather than pursue such an unpopular career path in the declining empire, and that he more than likely brought his own slaves with him to pay his way. Travelling around Ireland at that time was a dangerous and risky business, going from hostile kingdom to hostile kingdom, and a man planning on mass conversion needed a steady supply of some kind of tradable booty.
Only yesterday I listened to an excellent podcast by Doctor Elva Johnston from University College Dublin’s School of History. She mentions that in his Confessio, the bold Patrick confides that women threw ornaments and jewellery at him while he preached from the altar. Was he an early evangelical then? An interesting question when you consider Pope Francis’ recent response to the prolific success of Protestant evangelical movements in Latin America. Francis believes that the faithful are being driven away by priests who are lousy preachers, opting instead for the far more engaging stirrings of the evangelicals. Patrick does not mention if the women fainted or if mass hysteria broke out – perhaps he is too modest – notwithstanding, his utterings assured him a handy hoard of finely crafted golden torcs and collars to bribe his way into the next pagan enclave – one would imagine.
© Copyright Berni Dwan 2015
In honour of the week that’s in it, I have decided to toss aside all those fancy, foreign books I have been reading of late and revisit the canon of a writer who was not afraid to take risks back when it really meant putting your head on the block if you even entertained the merest brush with something mildly approaching risqué. Indeed, the block is fresh in my mind having recently visited the Pearse Museum in Rathfarnham, which boasts as one of its exhibits, the roughly hewn butcher’s block on which, apparently, Robert Emmet lost his head.
Anyway, such written malfeasance (in the eyes of many church and state moguls) was tantamount to heresy, not to mention corrupting the simple and abject masses. If said simple and abject masses were unable to detect the wickedness deeply buried in hyperbole, ambiguity or, dare I say it, a dash of post-colonialism, there were plenty of ‘officials’ who would do it on their behalf; that is, take fine pieces of work by perceived foreign deviants like, say, Graham Greene, Kingsley Amis, Tennessee Williams or Aldous Huxley, read the blank spaces between the written lines, and manufacture a grievous misdemeanour against God and Mother Ireland. It was then the duty of every right thinking citizen to be outraged at the content of a work they had not read and whose contents had been interpreted for them by critical elucidators who, oddly, had not read it either but still managed to construe it as blasphemous or libellous.
Most Irish authors worth reading – Brendan Behan, John McGahern, Frank O’Connor, Benedict Kiely (to name but a few) were banned – the very idea of reading one of their books was considered most egregious in mid-twentieth century Ireland. You have to admire then, authors like Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh who managed to survive in that literary quagmire, and of course Sean O’Faoláin as editor of The Bell who provided a voice for braver writers struggling to make their art in Ireland at this time. Oddly enough, Joyce’s Ulysses was never banned; in this case the government used a customs loophole which prevented it from occupying good shelf space in Irish homes and libraries. Absurdly, the population of Ireland was one big vicarious censor just like today it is one big vicarious banker.
In Ireland of 2015 it’s all very well to be lyrically outraged by the relative awfulness that was Ireland in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties when you are preaching to the converted and nobody is going to slap you or condemn you to the fiery pit. Imagine the accumulating fifty shades of wrath ranging from pleasant pink to apoplectic puce if you transferred the cultural landscape of 2015 Ireland back to, say, the Ireland of 1955? Hence my longstanding Platonic love affair with Flann O’Brien, although for present purposes I am remembering his journalistic alter ego, Myles na gCopaleen and his chaotically manicured Cruiskeen Lawn. I allude in particular to a witticism pertaining to our national saint. It starts with the inauguration of an eminent seat of learning.
The Institute for Advanced Studies was established by Eamon De Valera in 1940 comprising the School of Theoretical Physics and the School of Celtic Studies. Nobel laureate Professor Erwin Schroedinger was the first director of the School of Theoretical Physics. Shortly after his appointment he gave an address to the Institute entitled ‘Science and Humanism’, an address which was interpreted by na gCopaleen to mean that there is no logical basis for the belief in a First Cause.
Distinguished Celtic scholar, Professor T. F. O’Rahilly became director of the School of Celtic Studies in 1942 and he had a theory about the origins of our national saint. He believed that two separate missionaries Palladius and Patrick, had been confused as one figure. As you can see, a cauldron of uncertainty was bubbling over on Merrion Square, and this pot boiler did not escape the Myles na gCopaleen treatment. ‘A friend has drawn my attention to Professor O’Rahilly’s recent address on ‘Palladius and Patrick’. I understand also that Professor Schroedinger has been proving lately that you cannot establish a first cause. The first fruit of the Institute therefore, has been an effort to show that there are two Saint Patricks and no God. The propagation of heresy and unbelief has nothing to do with polite learning, and unless we are careful this Institute of ours will make us the laughing stock of the world.’
The Directorate of the Institute sued the Irish Times who agreed to pay £100 in damages in an out of court settlement. Incidentally, only £50 was ever paid.
In more recent times, 2012 to be exact, Doctor Roy Flechner, from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge University conducted research which points to the possibility that Saint Patrick might have been a reluctant tax collector for the Romans, who fled to Ireland rather than pursue such an unpopular career path in the declining empire, and that he more than likely brought his own slaves with him to pay his way. Travelling around Ireland at that time was a dangerous and risky business, going from hostile kingdom to hostile kingdom, and a man planning on mass conversion needed a steady supply of some kind of tradable booty.
Only yesterday I listened to an excellent podcast by Doctor Elva Johnston from University College Dublin’s School of History. She mentions that in his Confessio, the bold Patrick confides that women threw ornaments and jewellery at him while he preached from the altar. Was he an early evangelical then? An interesting question when you consider Pope Francis’ recent response to the prolific success of Protestant evangelical movements in Latin America. Francis believes that the faithful are being driven away by priests who are lousy preachers, opting instead for the far more engaging stirrings of the evangelicals. Patrick does not mention if the women fainted or if mass hysteria broke out – perhaps he is too modest – notwithstanding, his utterings assured him a handy hoard of finely crafted golden torcs and collars to bribe his way into the next pagan enclave – one would imagine.
© Copyright Berni Dwan 2015
