Ireland: Where are the Catholic holidays?

last updated 8 January 2015

Mary Kenny

Irish Independent

Ireland has gone too far in purging Catholicism from public life, said Mary Kenny. Where once we had a day off to celebrate Pentecost, now we just get a bank holiday around the same time. In the wake of the clerical sex-abuse scandal and revelations of forced labor in the church-run Magdalene laundries, it may be understandable that Ireland’s Catholic past “is presented as relentlessly dark and negative.” But that’s not the whole picture. “What about the beautiful Maytime processions that once brought neighborhoods together?” On feast days, Dublin slums used to be bedecked with banners and flowers as residents paraded through the streets. What are we supposed to celebrate on a bank holiday? Shuttered banks? It is true that even the New Testament recommends separating church and state, but that doesn’t mean we can’t retain our traditional Christian festivals. France, “the most vehemently secular state in Europe,” still proudly observes Catholic holidays, including Ascension and Corpus Christi; French government calendars even list saints’ days. Why can’t Ireland, with far more churchgoers, do the same? The sad thing, I fear, is that it appropriately reflects our current values “to exchange a Christian tradition for one linked with money.”