Hell, today defined by the jeunesse dorée as the waiting list for a Hermès handbag at Brown Thomas, was once terrifyingly plausible.
A sulphurous underground cavern, entered, thanks to Cromwell, via a tunnel outside Portumna, promised unrepentant sinners an eternal roasting on Beelzebub's chargrill. Popular lore, depending on one's politics, peer group or exposure to brimstoned Redemptorists, asserted that fellow-inmates would include men from Limerick, British soldiers, showbands and Charlie Haughey for taxing the farmers.
Heaven, by contrast, was a candyfloss expanse featuring lute-playing seraphim and perpetual Benediction. You'd finally get to meet Pádraig Pearse, the martyred Kevin Barry, Fr Damien of the leper colonies; be reunited with Patch, your favourite Jack Russell, so cruelly gobbled up by a combine harvester; and, more importantly, finally discover the Third Secret of Fatima. You could hardly wait.
Most of us, being sinners, were not destined to go straight there. Except, of course the "living saints" - the Pope, the handicapped, cardinals, women who had 10 children, President de Valera and, maybe, the priest's housekeeper. For everyone else "a spell in Purgatory" beckoned.
This was deemed to be very dreary indeed - think of being stranded on a desert island with only the collected works of Cecelia Ahern to read or the greatest hits of Samantha Mumba (Vol. 2) for light relief. For company you'd have Kitty O'Shea, the better class of Anglo-Irish landlord, the Tipperary hurling team and Edna O'Brien for writing "dirty books".
No one could measure precisely in worldly time how long the sentence would last but memory cards for the deceased carried helpfully short incantations which, if recited piously, could secure an indulgence.
There were thousands of permutations of both words and remission times on offer. Indulgences were the hedge funds of prayer and were taken very seriously.
But Limbo was the place to avoid. Oh boy. You really felt sorry for the poor souls of unbaptised pagan babies condemned forever to this celestial antechamber.
Africa was judged to be teeming with pagans and children generously donated to collection boxes for the Black Babies. In those pre-high-tech days, the dropping coin triggered a mechanical spring causing a fuzzed head to bow in gratitude - a thrilling spectacle for which many a gobstopper was forgone. The sticky pennies were destined for The Missions. Missionaries were men of the highest social standing - the holiest of Holy Joes out in Africa converting and baptising like demons. They were Ireland's greatest ambassadors and a credit to us all.
And what about the nuns who went? Pure saints "risking disease, the cooking pot and, but you could hardly bear to even think about it, defilement by a Baluba", all to save souls for the white baby Jesus.
Sometimes, priests came home for the summer holidays and were treated with the awe today reserved for Westlife. They shimmered with Hollywood tans and wore sunglasses just like the film stars.
Thronged slide-shows illustrated their achievements - a lovely new wooden church and a water pump for the village bathed in blistering Kenyan sunshine.
And the stories! A parish the size of Munster with only two priests yet they still managed to find time to teach the youngsters how to hurl. "They're mad about it." We almost burst with pride - not only was little Kwame's soul being saved but he might one day wear the purple and gold jersey for Wexford. We resolved to ask the postmistress how much it would cost to send a sliotar by airmail.
The poor nuns never seemed to come home. Except to die, maybe. And they were still white as sheets. How come they didn't get sun-tanned?
England was also supposed to be full of pagans. So was Russia, for whose conversion granny urged us to pray (wouldn't she have been thrilled with Yeltsin? Though Putin seems to be a bit of a boyo) but no one ever went there except the three members of the Communist Party of Ireland.
By contrast, lots of people crossed the Irish Sea. And many young-men-of-20, drenched with Holy Water, said goodbye with warnings about the dangers of "Pagan England" ringing in their ears. By the way, Granny was partially right. In the latest British census 37 million people claim to be Christian but only a fraction of those attend church with any frequency. The Archbishop of York admitted recently that he would be "hard pushed" to describe Britain as a Christian country. And the pagans? Well, at a mere 30,569, far less of a threat than we were once led to believe.
Funnily enough, England turned out to be home to lots of grown-up Black Babies.
Not only had many survived the perils of the savannah but they were alive and well, living in Brixton and working for the London Underground.
They appeared to have successfully converted to Christianity. So the money had been well spent after all.
Now, of course, the Black Babies are here in growing numbers and from hotels to hospitals help to keep the economy buzzing. In a sense they've come to their spiritual homeland - A Pagan Place, as Edna O'Brien once described our island home.
Remember when missionary priests came home for good, exhausted and withered by the heat of the mid-day sun and told us: "One day, Africa will be sending priests to Ireland". How we all laughed! The thought of it!
But wouldn't we be glad of a few now?