I wake to the usual thud of a crow hurling itself against our bedroom window. He is so predictable we no longer need an alarm clock. He and his mate continue throwing themselves at our windows at various intervals throughout the day.
At first I used to leap up with each thud thinking a particularly clumsy burglar was trying to gain entry. Now I hardly notice, though the din around our house is like living on a set of The Birds. Does anyone know why there are so many crows in Ireland?
Mid-morning I listen to a debate about the Angelus and feel passionately that it should be retained. To my English mind there is nothing sectarian about it. The Angelus was sung regularly at the end of services in our Anglican church in England and most of the phrasing is Biblical; where it is not, it is taken from the Book of Common Prayer. In the RTÉ version, though the sequence of the bells follows the phrasing of the Angelus, there are no actual words broadcast. We are free to make up our own or simply to reflect in silence for sixty seconds. Believers and non-believers alike have a wonderful opportunity twice a day to stop and think about our world, our values, the Middle East, the environment, damaged children, or whatever else is currently preying on our minds.
Celtic tradition
Coming from England 20 years ago, one of the things I most appreciated about Ireland was this capacity to bring spirituality out of the churches and weave it into the fabric of everyday life in the true spirit of the Celtic tradition. I even liked, though it astonished me at first, the slight rustling noise which indicated my neighbour on the bus was making the sign of the cross as we passed a church. This is becoming less and less common and has been more or less replaced by the sound of schoolchildren turning the air around us blue as they carry on, at the tops of their voices, conversations seemingly entirely composed of expletives.
In the afternoon I take my children to the hairdressers. This is not as simple as it might seem. One of them insists on having his head shaved while the other growls if the hairdresser so much as cuts off a lock. Intensive mediation is called for on my part. When it comes to my turn I request layers. "Shaggy, you know." "Messy," suggests the hairdresser. Messy sounds good. My hair has been messed about so often by the wind recently, it might as well look as if it has been done on purpose.
Beside me my son gives a snort. "Now you've done it! Messy!" he scoffs, hunched over his Gameboy. "You'll see," I retort, squinting at the mirror and dreaming about my new, tousled, Meg-Ryan-just-got-out-of-bed look.
Bouffant style
I begin to have my doubts when the hairdresser blow dries me up into a bouffant style I can't imagine Meg Ryan would be seen dead in. I turn round. My son glances up from his Gameboy and smiles sweetly. "I told you it was a mistake. You look like a Sixties housewife."
The awful thing is, he's right. (And where has he picked up the word housewife? I thought we'd got rid of that.) I cough up an astounding number of euro and stagger out in need of a strong coffee. It is not to be. One son is agreeable to a walk along the pier, if bribed by an ice cream. The other wants to head straight home. He always wants to go back home; in fact it's very difficult to get him out of doors at all. He has bonded deeply with his Playstation and suffers separation anxiety if parted from it for too long. A squabble ensues between them. I walk towards the car, for one thing is certain: I'm not going to be allowed to express an opinion.
Then, with the suddenness that hails a breakthrough in any peace process, they announce a compromise. We drive to a café where one orders fried sausages and egg and the other chocolate cake. I sip my strong coffee and ponder my children's unhealthy diet. By the time they've grown up, it will probably have become the fashion for children to sue their parents for not insisting on five portions of fruit and veg a day.
We return home to the crows and I curl up on the sofa with my Sixties hairdo to watch a programme on the Magdalen laundries. It is gruelling and by the end I want to hurl something at the television. At the same time I reflect that society as a whole, in my country as well as in Ireland, was harsh and unforgiving towards unmarried mothers during that period and we can't expect nuns necessarily to think outside their culture.
It is followed by a programme about the Roman Catholic Church which emphasises that only one man from the North will be ordained this year. Astoundingly, a Church spokesmen puts this down to the fact that we have all become too selfish and fond of our own comfort to think of going for the priesthood.
Dwindling congregations
How I wish they would come clean and apologise for the past and all the pain that has been caused, and change the rules to allow married men and women to be ordained, and listen more to their dwindling congregations - and even to people who have left the Church and are yet more humane, more loving, more insightful in their spirituality - before faith (of whatever kind) disappears altogether on this island and we are left to an entirely materialistic society with no Angelus.
Twenty years ago I never dreamed this country would so quickly be facing the collapse of organised religion. However, an anti-clerical society does not inevitably have to be a secular society. This may sound odd coming from an Englishwoman, but there is much for our times in the Celtic tradition and it would be a tragedy if, in the current flight away from the Roman Catholic Church, that more ancient strand of spirituality on this island were also to be lost.