When Mary McAleese was first proposed as a possible president of Ireland back in the 1990s, some commentators feared that she would be “too tribally Catholic”. Mary came from a Belfast Catholic family – she is the eldest of nine children – who had been burned out of their home by sectarian attacks, and she had identified herself as a committed Catholic. A well-known public intellectual in Dublin, Eoghan Harris, predicted that she would be a “tribal time bomb” – she was too identified with Northern Irish Catholics (who are often more “tribally” Catholic than southern Irish ones).
But the predictions didn’t turn out as foretold. President McAleese, elected in November 1997, made her mission “bridge-building” and went out of her way to invite Ulster Unionists to the presidential residence. She was markedly ecumenical, and defied the Catholic hierarchy during her presidency by taking communion at an Anglican service.
Overall, she proved to be a graceful and dutiful president, and welcomed the Queen on an historic state visit in May 2011. She served a second term, unopposed, and when she stepped down she dedicated herself to the study of canon law in Rome. She was already a law professor, so she had the right academic background.
The McAleeses have three children, and their son Justin, who is gay, confided to his parents that he had suffered exclusion and unhappiness as a consequence of the Church’s attitude to homosexuality. From 2014 onwards, Mary began to talk more openly about gay rights as human rights.
In the 2016 same-sex marriage referendum, she went full throttle to support marriage for gay partners. It was evident that she was being driven by a fierce maternal protectiveness in this – and she admitted as much.
Now she has taken on the Vatican over the question of women priests, denouncing it as “an empire of misogyny” which preaches “theology as codology”. Previously unswervingly pro-life, she has also hit out at the Church for being “anti-abortion”, and has disparaged the cardinals at the Vatican as a bunch of celibates disassociated from the real world.
Opinions vary as to whether Mary is right, or a little extreme in her language, or brave, or stung by rejection (when she was excluded by the Vatican from speaking), or abusing the position that she holds as a former head of state.
I’d say she seems to have stirred up an interesting debate, but it also fascinates me that some people grow more radical and fiery with age, and, having had a conformist and well-behaved youth and a dignified middle age, suddenly start talking like rebellious adolescents at the age of 66. Whereas those of us who did all that rebellious stuff at the age of 19 have, possibly, grown more mellow…
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Visiting Dorset last year, I was told to “look out for the cathedral spire as you pass Salisbury”. It’s just visible from the train, and people in the region are proud of this beautiful and historic cathedral city, its image immortalised by the famous 1831 painting by John Constable.
But now, suddenly, Salisbury is associated with something very sinister as we learn that hundreds could be affected by the poisoned nerve agent used to attack Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
A dreadful event for the victims, a bad omen for future relations with Russia, and a tarnishing, somehow, of the bucolic image of Constable’s lovely landscape.
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St Patrick’s Day on Saturday will be marked by a well-attended rugby match between England and Ireland at Twickenham, in which Ireland are the favourites, having already won the Six Nations championship with its defeat of Scotland last Saturday (Scotland having nonetheless played surprisingly well this season).
Rugby has always been the most politically (and denominationally) inclusive of Irish sports, since it ignores the border between North and South, and many of the great players in the past were Ulstermen. But it did, traditionally, have a stronger class basis, and it favoured boys from private schools and universities. In its early years, the Irish Rugby Football Union only accepted “varsity men”, turning away working lads.
By contrast, in Wales, rugby had no class basis and “varsity men” played alongside colliers in many a strong Welsh team.
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