A weekly column is a privilege, not a chore

Over forty-five years years ago – on January 23rd, 1980 to be exact – my first column was published in the Western People. The then owner of the paper, Rita de Vere Durcan, was anxious that the Western People would have a regular religious column and the then editor, Terry Reilly, was asked to search for a willing recruit. A weekly column written by a priest had been a prominent part of the Western for some years until the then writer, Fr Colm Kilcoyne, moved to the newly-founded Western Journal. Sin scéal eile.

I had written a few bits and pieces over the years and someone suggested my name to the editor. I was happy to take it on for a while. Little did I imagine at the time that churning out almost a thousand words would become part of the pattern of my week for forty-five years.

When I started with the Western I was a curate in Dromard in County Sligo and I remember investing in a tiny Brother typewriter. (computers, I think, hadn’t been invented and email certainly didn’t exist!). 

I couldn’t type of course. For all the useless things we learned in Maynooth, we were never taught the two most important skills of all – to type and to cook. I imagined that typing would come easy to me. It didn’t, though I soon learned how to type with one finger and later I progressed to a finger and a half – dodgy typists will get my drift.

First, I would write out my copy in long hand and then type it painstakingly word for word and then I either had to post it, or drive to Ballina with it, or cajole Johnny Nealon, who drove for Duffy’s Bakery, to drop it into the Western for me. It was a considerable logistical task to get it all together. However, the later purchase of an Amstrad computer, the Massey-Ferguson of the computer world, and later again the luxury of a basic Apple Mac made life much easier. And, of course, later the invention of the worldwide web and email were the icing on the cake.

Like riding a bicycle, belting out nearly 1,000 words a week became easier over the years. What helped was the freedom to use this space to do with as I pleased. I was presented, for over four decades, with the luxury of a platform on which I could sound off (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphors) on any subject under the sun. And while it is sometimes a burden – like tonight as I write at an unearthly hour – it was always a privilege and sometimes a joy.

The fact that I’m still here means, I trust, that sufficient people are sufficiently happy with what I do for the Western to continue to justify employing me. Knowing as I do that the managers of newspapers are notoriously unsentimental, if this column wasn’t working neither would I. And enjoying it as I do presently, God and the present editor willing, I hope to continue in this space for a while longer.

Not indeed that everyone was always delighted with my contributions. During the H Block days of the 1980s, I took what was then a politically incorrect line, criticising Sinn Féin for exploiting the hunger-strikers – though it now seems embarrassingly obvious – and I remember an unofficial visit from a few ‘republicans’ who pushed themselves into my house and who insisted on clarifying the issues involved. Two rather large individuals stood in my kitchen in Dromard (for what felt like an inordinately extended visit) and suggested that I should withdraw my position publicly in the following issue of the paper. Or else what, I ventured? There was a lot of humming and hawing and vague hints and feet shuffling. Clearly they had expected me to capitulate completely and, when I didn’t out of foolishness rather than bravery, they didn’t seem to have any Plan B – thankfully.

It was an instructive encounter with the bully-boys of the IRA who felt at the time they could intimidate any critical voice into submission. It was too a dangerous time and I don’t think, in similar circumstances, I would be quite as brave now. Youth, for all its foolishness, has its advantages.

The other group I’ve successfully alienated are members of the religious right who have tracked me over the years, in person and in print, and who have never spared me. A few had the courage to sign their names; others imagined that an anonymous missive would inflict a deeper wound. They were right, of course, until the day a friend advised me never to read a letter unless it was signed. It was good advice and has stood me in good stead over the years. Sometimes people ask why I don’t respond to criticism that seems, to the neutral observer, personal and often patently unfair. My answer is that usually I do but if the criticism was from a current parishioner, my operating principle is not to respond.

Sometimes people have asked me too if my religious superiors have ever taken me to task for writings that sometimes have an edge to them or that are perceived as unduly critical of the Catholic Church or that some people believe are imprudent or inappropriate. The answer is No. In all of more than four decades none of the four bishops I served under have ever (as yet!) even vaguely suggested that they were unhappy with anything I have written here. All things considered I doubt if other institutions would have similarly indulged my scribblings.

Columnists, of course, are a peculiar breed. We’re opinionated, precious, know-alls, attention-seekers, obsessives and, it goes without saying, experts on every subject we imagine needs our attention. Little wonder that we annoy, frustrate, infuriate and disorientate our readers, as well as hopefully on occasion entertain, instruct and encourage them to look at life through a different prism.

May I thank my readers, some of whom have stayed with me for all of forty-five years on what has been, for me at least, a satisfying adventure.