Guess Who's Coming to Mass

IT'S NOT so strange when you think about it, in fact it's a suitable enough thing to do - although I have to confess that I'd never actually thought about it before - going to mass during a rock festival, which I did on the Sunday at Tramore as part of this feature somebody had dreamt up, to do with "reviewing" masses.
This may be a very good idea. I'm not totally convinced. It's a lot to ask. But it did get me thinking about what function the mass, particularly the Sunday Mass, really plays in the lives of the vast numbers of Irish people who choose to attend the rite, or ritual, regularly.
Every now and again I ponder this fact, because it seems so curious to me - that well over half the population of Southern Ireland attends mass most Sundays. What, I have found myself wondering, what exactly are they getting out of it?
The general supposition, or "line", is that people who attend mass benefit "spiritually". But, really, this doesn't tell you very much. Because nobody can tell you exactly what "spiritually" means in this context, in what way this class of benefit is actually experienced by the recipient. Indeed, it's part of the awesome significance - how pleased I am, incidentally, to have found a context at last in which to deploy the word "awesome" properly. I bet it feels better about itself now - it's part of the awesome significance, as I say, of the spiritual benefits claimed to be available from attendance at mass that the experience cannot be conveyed in plain language. As a matter of inexpressible fact, it's beyond language.
Which does make the whole topic hard to argue about, you'll agree. Hard to say anything about, really. All I could figure as I tried to make my unsteady stride pass as a jaunty way of walking up the steep hill to the church in Tramore - a far steeper hill than it looks at first sight, I warn you . . . a pretty typical church of its type . . . huge, dark-grey stonework towering up, the bulkiest and most imposing building around, and built up high, over the rest of the town - all I could figure is that what people get out of going to mass must have something to do with comfort, with making people feel a bit better about themselves, their lives, their place in the scheme of things, if even only for a short time, a few moments.
But there was nothing of the sort happening in the church, as far as I could judge, when I edged and (unaggressively) shouldered my way in through the crowd clogging the main door to stand against the back wall and take in what was happening. And like I say, nothing. The place was packed, all sizes, sexes, ages, most social classes, people kneeling and sitting and standing at various points in the proceedings, never all moving completely in unison. A certain air of shuffling about it all.
I remembered most of the bits of the mass, the gospel, the Agnus Dei, the Consecration of course, the Domine Non Sum Dignus (I'm not sure that's the right spelling) and so on, although hearing it conducted through English still falls a little strangely on my ears. A few people that I could see did bring a semblance of fervour to their participation - although some of this was unconvincing, as if done for show. And anyway, as far as the majority was concerned I reckoned that they had their minds elsewhere most of the time.
That's the reason I didn't stay to the end. If they didn't find it impressive or even attention-holding, what experience was there here for me to stay and suss out?
But I did stay long enough to hear Fr. Flynn's sermon. All about the Fleadh and the apprehensions some residents might have about hosts of wild young people with a vague violence about them descending on the town every year; and the countervailing argument about the economic advantages to the town of large numbers of people coming and spending money on a regular basis, and god knows couldn't we all be doing with it.
And the redeeming synthesis melding and transforming the foregoing thesis and antithesis - that what Christians must do is to do good, whatever that is, respecting the opinions and preferences of others, striving to see what is fine, not what is bad, and noting that the vast majority of the young people who had come to the town were perfectly decent, well-behaved, reasonably clean, not at all like the newspapers and television portrayed them - another example of the way the media for their own reasons highlight the dark sins of various areas of Irish life, never the bright virtues - but out simply to enjoy themselves, like young people everywhere, "not interested solely" (I wrote this bit down) "in stirring up violence and drugs". I considered, just for a microsecond, shouting up: "That's right, Father, they're after sex as well", but chickened out.
I sat on the wall outside and waited for the crowds to come out so that I could ear-wig some of what they were saying. And none of them that I heard was talking about the experience they had just had. In fact, there were no conversations at all that could be called "spiritual" or even "religious". It could be, I'll concede, that this was on account of the experience having been so intense as to be inexpressible, but I don't think so.
I think it just hadn't made much of an impression on them. I think that quite a lot of the reason most of them go to mass is that, well, they just do. I don't think it's going to take anything cataclysmic for most of them to stop going on most Sundays and many of them to stop going altogether. I'm not sure how much it means any more to say that "(Southern) Ireland is a Catholic country".
Being at mass was a bit like spending half an hour listening to an overpaid star doing an unconvincing tired act on the main stage and then realising that, fuck, you could have been over at the NME tent listening to The Pale. Which means that it was a suitable enough thing to do during the Fleadh Mor at Tramore, and that the pubs were open already.
* Eamonn McCann

ST JOSEPH'S CHURCH, HOWTH
ST JOSEPH'S church is small, bright and perched on top of a very steep hill about two hundred yards from my house, with a stark, beautiful view overlooking Lambay Island.
During the walk up - always a killer, even in the days when Sunday mornings were hangover-free - Jeanette and I didn't meet a single soul, and that's when we realised. The times of Sunday mass have changed in the last ten years, and no one even bothered to tell us.
The 9.30am slot was always the mass of choice for those who liked their religious services brief. It was the fastest mass for miles around - half an hour maximum - which meant we could get up, get mass, get home and get comfy in front of the telly in the space of forty-five minutes.
Now it's gone, as has the torturous 10.30 "children's mass", replaced by a 10 o'clock performance that seems to cater mostly for young casually-dressed adults and those elderly folk for whom the mile long walk to the larger parish church might prove fatal. The 10'clock is less spectacular than the showy afternoon folk mass, but it too has its musical factor, courtesy of the (steadily diminishing) group of Carmelite nuns who live in the adjoining convent.
They merge from their private quarters in stately procession, each nun pausing briefly at the gates of the little side chapel, kind of like Bruce Springsteen's backing band waiting to be introduced. The audience never acknowledges them, and they fade back into the shadows, all apart from the organ-playing nun who remains in view throughout and even loiters awhile around the chapel gates at the finish.
They sing their Glorias and Alleluiahs modestly, allowing only the most demure harmonies to creep in as hymns draw to a close. Their voices are shy and lovely.
There's only need for one altar boy. He's called Ivan, aged about nine and, we learn later, he doesn't know the name of the priest he's assisting. Ivan mucks up the first bell solo. He delivers the next two precisely on time, with a defiant sweep of his little wrist. Two giggling girls, who've been standing expectantly near the back of the church, are asked to bring up the offerings.
I used to long to be asked to bring up the offerings. The trick is to look both available and angelic. I was only ever asked once, and have never been sure which part I failed at so regularly.
The priest is an odd combination of Richard Attenborough and exacting college tutor. He delivers his homily in measured tones, leaning against the lectern, hands folded, and the feeling lurks that the congregation should be taking notes in case any of this crops up in the end of term exams. He seems to have worked hard on this one, guiding us dextrously back through the relevant passages from the readings and Gospel we've just heard.
It's a very likeable speech, allowing for the occasional extraneous detail; the difficulty of acquiring donkeys during Penal times, and the ways in which our attitudes resemble those of people of the seventeenth century. The gist is that when people speak of the anger and wrath of God, they're actually referring to the anger within themselves, and that we tend to read unto Him our own narrowness of heart and mind. Altogether, a well constructed affair, with interest sustained throughout, and the coup de grace - a quotation from Joseph Mary Plunkett. Definitely a winner. The elderly gentleman behind us coughs up approval.
It's all routine from there, the Creed, Eucharistic prayer, the shuffling Communion queue. Not even the parish notices have changed; someone's still organising a cake sale in the Parish Hall next Saturday.
Leaving the church, there's none of the lightness of spirit experienced years ago, perhaps because what I used to accept as the bestowal of grace was only the temporary removal of guilt at not attending mass on a regular basis. Somehow there always seem to be more interesting things to feel guilty about these days.
* Lorraine Freeney

ST. MARY'S, WESTPORT
In between prayers that governments worldwide might abandon torture practices, and that people everywhere should recognise gentility as a better way of coping with life than aggression came a prayer "that we may be granted with fine weather."
It was a misplaced plea, but one that was already on its way to being answered, the clouds and fog that had dampened the West for most of the weekend lifting as the congregation gathered at St. Mary's. And when we went in peace to love and serve the Lord, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the festivities of the Westport Festival - God willing, of course - could commence.
It was a compact mass by any standards, and organisationally better than most of its size. Church-goers were asked to shimmy in to the centre of the pews, to make room on the aisles. Ushers seated people quickly. Communion queues were fast-moving, and the second reading was dispensed with, as a pleasantly unexpected time-saver. Even row-by-row collections were abandoned in favour of large, prominent collection boxes at the doors.
In fact, the whole thing was so goddamn organised and user-friendly that it didn't quite feel like mass at all. The young priest who welcomed people from Nova Scotia, Illinois, Massachusetts and various places that all have their very own Westport's seemed as if he might have missed his true vocation - as an Aer Lingus flight attendant: at the end of the mass, he hoped we enjoyed our stay (especially those who were returning home for the weekend) and wished anyone who was just passing through a safe completion of their journey.
Adding to the sound-bytey, commercialised tone of the affair, community news bits were thrown into the mass at strange points (like immediately following the Eucharist), making it seem that while listed as a folk mass in a local community information brochure, this gathering might have been better billed as the "Short-Attention Span Mass at Noon."
Even the sermon was on the better side of five minutes and carefully centred on one simple theme: gentility. The priest, it must be said, was surprisingly copped on, listing "driving with the windows down and music blasting" as one way people might take a load off their minds, and made a lot of sense with his condemnation of aggression and violence in situations as varied as personal relationships, office politics and international dealings.That said, he still sounded like a travel brochure at times.
"We all need to take a break from the pressures of life sometimes," he began. "We all feel the need to just get away from it all" - providing undeniable confirmation of a St. Mary's/Aer Lingus brainwashing conspiracy.
There were amazing echoes in the vast, arched building, which frequently threatened to overwhelm what was going on up on the altar. The first reading was completely inaudible thanks to the combination of people coughing and babies crying and an inarticulate ageing priest, and the gospel reading was impossible to hear for a large section of the congregation as a lost child stood in the aisle screaming "Where's me da?"
Indeed despite all the pinching and tucking of the ceremony, the crowd were easily distracted and generally apathetic. Singing was left to a capable choir, despite the familiarity of the chosen hymns (e.g. "Be Not Afraid"), and "Peace be with you's" rarely ventured beyond the person to one's left and right. During a particularly lax moment, confusion over whether to stand or sit swept through the back of the congregation, sending a Mexican wave up to the altar.
The apathy half emptied the church before the first words of the closing hymn had been sung. But once outside, people apparently forgot why they had been in such a hurry. A large chunk of the crowd - more locals than tourists - waited around for a good part of the next twenty minutes, watching the opening parade of the week-long Westport Festival, which consisted of a few marching bands, some local figures, and various people with banners representing different Westports of the world.
"Westport: A State of Mind", one of them read. I reckon that's all mass is too.
* Tara McCarthy

COMMUNITY CENTRE, BALLYHEIGUE, CO. KERRY
BALLYHEIGUE is another country. They do things differently there. Gigs start on time, hurling matches dictate the hour of Sunday dinner and JayPee mingles nonchalantly with this week's first fifteen on the notice board.
Even the visitors know better than to queue up at the local pew garden; round here the happening place on the Sabbath is the local Community Centre where the big draw's a Groucho Marx lookalike with as neat a line in repartee as his predecessor at his Day At The Races.
The venue is inspired: airy and cool, with a canny nod in the direction of Adrian Lyne (or is it Truffaut?)-style stark minimalism, it embodies all that the trendiest hotspots lust after but seldom achieve: that I'll-be-damned-if-I'm-going-to-dress-up-for-you look that even the Place Of Dance can't quite carry off these days.
Supports are afforded short shrift here. Punters part with the readies only when the main man appears. Not for them the regular second raters in tinsel winklepickers and gold lamé suits. This crowd hogs the bed right up until the last minute, only finally deigning to set foot inside the place when the guy in the dress is about to put in the customary 40-minute appearance.
And what an appearance! Feted against an exquisite crimson curtained backdrop that'd be the envy of the most upmarket production of 42nd St. the man in the dress strides on court (badminton, tennis, basketball; for a while there we were expecting an intermission appearance from Michael Jordan, or at the very least, Larry Bird), his lone sidekick a tad bedraggled and bewildered by the teeming masses awaiting their double act.
Before long the spotlight lands on Groucho, illuminating a pair of steely pinpoints of eyes that'd burn a hole in a crucifix given half a chance. Zachariah, an old favourite, pops up briefly but the man saves his primary thrust for later when talk turns to unconditional love and the joyous, if dubious state of being childlike.
Repeated declarations of how blessed was his yoke set the more sordid minds aflutter momentarily but the gist of it all seemed to be that, at least in Ballyheigue, the wet head was dead. Anyone who could grin like a complete gom was guaranteed a place at the right hand of the table, a much-sought-after post given the propensity of the local waiter to collapse in a muzzy heap after the first few are served at any table lately.
The word at the last bend was hot. Lurex bike shorts, Prince-of-Wales check coats and knitted caps all converged on the front row to lend their own seal of approval. And the thought struck that Vince Power could learn something from Groucho.
Efficiency was the name of the game. Lay ministers, consummate extras all, upped the throughput of the masses with aplomb while sundry and suitably faceless others gathered monies in the background with a single-mindedness worthy of Oral Roberts in his heyday.
And not a sign of a guest list either. First time I've had to pay into a gig in ages. Bah, humbug!
* Siobhán Long

CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF REFUGE, RATHMINES
THE INSCRIPTION above the colonnaded entrance reads SUB INVOC MARIAE IMMACTULATAE REFUGII PECCATORUM. Unfortunately, having slept it out the morning we did Latin at school, I can't give you a precise translation but I presume it means something like LICENSED PREMISES. PROP. JESUS H. CHRIST EST. 000. BREAD 'N' WINE A SPECIALITY. LIVE MUSIC TONITE!
You see, it's Rathmines Church, it's Sunday evening and that can mean only one thing: it's folk mass time, the biggest holy show in town, or at least in the greater Dublin 6 area! This ritual takes place eh, religiously, every Sabbath at 6pm sharp and has been a conspicuous part of life in flatland for longer than anyone cares to remember. Even today, in this the year of our landlord 1993, it would appear to be as popular as ever.
For the uninitiated, let me explain that the folk mass is a musical sub-genre, characterised by giddy melodies, Christianised lyrics and the tendency of many of its exponents to wear dungarees. In its Rathmines incarnation, it is performed by an ensemble consisting of two acoustic guitarists, a keyboard player, a flautist and a chorus of eleven vocalists.
The group is completed by a guy in a funny-looking get-up who neither sings nor plays an instrument and who spends the entire gig making strange gestures and muttering incomprehensible slogans into his mike. Technically known as "a priest", this character is to the folk mass what Bez was to the Happy Mondays.
The first thing I notice about the Rathmines show is that, to a large extent, folk mass music is very similar to death metal. Both genres concentrate explicitly on subjects such as blood sacrifice, mutilation and life beyond the grave.
One major difference, however, is that people who sing death metal always look and sound convincingly appalled by the content of their songs. This liturgical folk group, on the other hand, croon their way through their gore-spattered ditties with the chirpy, bouncy demeanours of axe-murderers on Ecstasy, even smiling, winking and chirruping while they mouth gruesome lines such as "This is my body broken for you/This is my blood poured out for you? ("In Love For Me"). Mention of which reminds me of another sizeable, and to my mind important, distinction between death metal and the folk mass. At least with death metal you can't hear the lyrics.
Thematically, most of the songs featured in the Rathmines set actively encourage their listeners (among whom, on the night, were many impressionable College of Commerce students) to engage in the heinous act of cannibalism. Could anything, for instance, be more blatant than the following exhortation from "Seek The Lord": "Oh, taste and see, taste and see that the Lord is good". To the best of my knowledge, no other religion or movement apart from Christianity has ever attempted to further its aims by advertising the tastiness of its founder. Most leaders ask only that their followers administer the occasional wet smackeroo on their buttocks. Christians, it seems, are required to use a knife and fork.
If nothing else, this reviewer learned one lesson tonight. The devil does have all the best tunes. The only things God has are tricky harmonies and difficult chord changes. It has to be said that the musicians do their best, but they are ultimately defeated by songs which are what we professional music critics would describe as, well, complete and utter shite.
From time to time, the audience is invited to "singalong" and one or two actually try but the only song that really elicits any kind of genuine participation from the congregation is a version of Van Morrison's classic "Grrrmmm Frrrmmm Wrrrmmm".
That particular track is probably better known to you as "Gale Force Wind" but tonight it was performed during the distribution of Holy Communion and when sung by several hundred people with their mouths full of transubstantiated hosts it comes across as "Grrrmmm Frrrmmm Wrrrmmm", I can assure you.
The merchandising stand at the back of the arena appeared busy throughout the evening with fanzines such as The Universe and the Irish Catholic emerging as the best sellers. Sales of memorabilia such as crucifixes (clever variations on Satanic inverted crosses) were also swift. For the record, the group managed to get through their entire set in a little over forty-seven minutes. There was no encore.
In the spirit of positive criticism, may I suggest that for further performances the organisers might consider sexing up their schtick by drafting in a troupe of scantily clad dancers. That priest individual, for example, would be far more effective if he were to cast off the dress and slap on a jock-strap and some baby oil instead.
Either way, come next Sunday I'll certainly be sauntering up to Our Lady Of Refuge Church. However, I'll be taking the advice of a very well-known folk mass hymn that has a line about "travelling the few extra yards" - all the way up to the beer garden of The Rathmines Inn, to be exact.
* Liam Fay

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S, DUBLIN
Walking up the steps to the St. Francis Xavier's RC Church in Gardiner Street, I experienced the same feelings as when I walked a little up the Shankill Road a few years ago. My legs and will weakened with each step, and voices started barking in my head: "They'll know you're not one of them. They'll spot you straight away, and then . . . "
Luckily for me there were no Atheist Detect And Destroy devices planted at the front door. So, it was with relief that I sat down near the back to observe these Christians doing their bit of Sunday worship. I had picked up two pieces of literature on the way in: Our Sunday Letter, and the programme of events for the mass, entitled Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time.
The Sunday Letter had a rock 'n' roll angle of sorts. It talked about Chilean music and how their pan-pipes, made from reeds, gave that music "an attractive and special flavour." It informed us that if we wanted to get a taste for these flavours, we should check out Simon ... Garfunkel's version of "El Condor Passa".
However, what I found most interesting about this little article was a poem at the end of it by Caryll Houselander, who used the reed image to speak of Mary (and all other women, I suppose): "She is a reed/Simple and straight/Growing by a lake in Nazereth/A reed that is empty/Until the breath of God/Fills it with infinite music/The breath of the spirit of love/Utters the word of God/Through an empty reed/The word of God/Is infinite music/In a little reed."
Somehow I felt reassured by this little piece of fancified sexism, because it reinforced my belief that the Church is and always has been, as James Brown would say, "a man's world."
This church building is stunningly beautiful, with its pillars and ornamental ceiling; its stepped altar full of coloured marble and two golden child-like trumpeteers framing it, and above it a magnificent painting of Christ et al; its many finely sculpted statues; and not to forget its mahogany-framed and delicately painted Stations Of The Cross. Yes, you could feel holy here - or certainly in awe - if you chose to. Rich in architecture and art indeed, and a far cry from the ugly and dishevelled flats across the road from it.
Seating was plentiful and the congregation slightly on the elderly side, although there were some children. One, behind me, imitated the gong everytime it went off and kept imitating it for a considerable length of time after it had gonged-out, much to the embarassment of her father.
Another child, slithering away from the clutches of his mother, took to walking up and down the aisles, grinning and swinging his arms playfully from side to side. Two girls, across the aisle from me, were busy with pen and notebook, discussing and writing something. Children - they don't understand, do they?
There was one collection at the door and two during mass, and the ring of money must have echoed pleasently in the priest's ears, as his monotonous voice droned on. At least his sermon was short. (The entire mass lasted about half an hour.) The gospel had gone on about how "no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those whom the Son chooses to reveal him," and the priest, of course, was drearily endorsing this. A neat trick, that message: Daddy knows everything and won't tell anybody else except his son, who will then only tell his chosen few. And who are they? The male priests, of course.
At communion most people got up. However, about 25% took a left turn and headed towards the door. I stayed on to watch this stange ritual a little longer. I thought of the Sawdoctors line from "I Useta Love Her", about how us boys used to marvel at the glory of her arse. Such diversions made Sunday Mass exciting, for me as a kid, as I planned and then manouvered myself amid the communion crowd, with the hope of being able to stand beside and rub shoulders with the sweetheart of my dreams.
My plans never worked out, sadly, and as I walked out Francis Xavier's door, I understood even more clearly why RC never worked out for me.
* Gerry McGovern