I grew up in Blanchardstown (then Baile Luindin, se mile o lar na cathrac ar an taobh thuaidh den cathrac, but later revised to Baile Blainseir) in the fifties and sixties.There’s one thing sure and that is that children then had to be responsible at a much earlier age than today.And lest it becomes the consensus that the Catholic Church was a brooding evil presence,as many revisionists maintain these days,as far as I am concerned it was anything but.I would say that there are millions like me who served as altar boys ,played Gaelic games as boys and men,went to the Christian Brothers,had loving and decent parents and who never experienced the shocking sexual abuse which it seems was around at the time.Nor even heard of it.It appears to have taken place in an arena that I never visited nor came into contact with.I suppose that I was lucky and didn’t know it.
I was an altar boy in Blanch from about 9 years of age to ,I would say, 14 years.The Mass was then in Latin and you had to learn the responses by rote,which you did even though you couldn’t fully understand them.It was only when I learned Latin in secondary school,through Irish,in Brunswick Street,that the meanings became clear to me.You learned the words from a leaflet and the other facets from the older hands with whom one served an apprenticeship of sorts.You learned when to ring the bell,when to go for the cruets of water and wine,when to put the altar cloth over the altar rails for communion and when to get the article ( I can’t remember its name) to catch any fragments of the host that might fall from the Priest’s hands when giving out communion.If you got up by mistake, the best tip was to bow and return as the congregation hadn’t a clue either.
Much like today,I suppose,except that the Latin has gone and very regrettably there were no altar girls.(Will the next Church scandal relate to the interaction of altar boys and alter girls.If it does the Church can’t win-if it doesn’t have altar girls it is anti woman and if it does and improper things happen between the sexes it will also be condemned by the usual suspects.)
After a while you graduated to Funerals and weddings,much looked forward to because you got a few bob in most cases.And the same surplice and sutane (are these spelled correctly),which your parents bought and laundered had universal use.These vestments were owned by yourself and were costly for working families to buy.When you retired from the job they could be passed on to your younger brothers ,if you had any,or sold to new recruits if minded well and in good condition.
When you mastered all these aspects of the job you became fit for your turn to do the weekly church clerking.This meant that for one week (Monday morning until the following Sunday evening ),you looked after all aspects of the Church .This involved opening the Church at seven thirty each morning,serving first Mass at eight a.m.,ringing the Mass bell fifteen minutes before that,ringing the Angelus bell at twelve and six,serving devotions and all weddings and funerals that fell into your shift.You also served Sunday Mass and Devotions and then handed over the Church keys to the next fellow on the rote.It fell to you to keep the Church neat and tidy for your week.This you did from the time you were in fourth class ,say ten years of age, and we took it in our stride.
The national school was within a few minutes walk of the Church so there was no problem getting to ring the Angelus bell at twelve.The six o clock bell was more of a challenge ,especially if you had to play a schools match in the fifteen acres in the Phoenix Park after School.To get to the matches itself presented a challenge.Only one teacher went to the matches in my time ,Paddy Murray a good one,and his car would only bring a few.Most of us used get the bus to the Ashtown gates and walk from there past Aras and the American Embassy to the fifteen acres.There we would meet up with the others and play the game,hurling or football depending on the season,tog back in and make our way back to Blanchardstown by the same route.More often than not you would have to run most of the way back to the Ashtown Gate if you had to ring the six o clock Angelus bell .And we did and thought nothing of it .No wonder we were fit.
We were in constant company of all the clergy of the Parish all the time and apart from the odd bout of contrariness from one of two of the curates,nobody ever interfered with or molested us.On the contrary,I have the most pleasant memories of those times.The Parish priest of my tenure was Father Carney,a thorough gentleman.He lived in the Parish House with his servant Essie a most formidable and decent woman totally devoted to him.It was to his house we repaired after Sunday devotions to watch the Flintstones on television and to be treated to tea and the best of buns baked by Essie,when none of us had televisions.It was him who brought us to Croke Park to watch intercounty matches and on drives and holidays whenever he had the money.
Every Christmas he bought from his own pocket the same number of gifts from Mc Birney’s that there were altar boys and on Christmas eve all the boys would assemble in the Parochial House,with the longest serving having first pick of the gifts and so on.Believe me when I say that even the worst of these was at least equal to what Santy brought us.
I well remember when the vernacular replaced the Latin.I lay claim to serving the first Irish Mass celebrated in Blanchardstown by Father O Keeffee,another gentleman.Another favourite of the servers and indeed of all the Parishioners was Father Brown ,the curate in Porterstown,who could say a Mass in fifteen minutes flat,sermon and all.Full house always guaranteed for his Mass.At that time the only Churches in the Parish were in Blanchardstown and Porterstown.Aside from Castleknock College ,which ordinary people like us had no truck with,Mass was also celebrated in Blanchardstown Hospital,James Connolly hospital.But the Blanch servers had no involvement there.
When I say there was no truck between Blanch people and Castleknock College,I am not fully accurate.There was interaction on two fronts.One was that a monk there was a GAA man and he used smuggle to Brigids GAA Club the used boots of the boarders before their rugby playing owners threw them out.Secondly the College had a working farm and working horses.A Blanch man who shall be nameless had a horse’s cart ,a crosscut saw,a few healthy sons ,feck all money and a desire to sell logs.This he achieved by “borrowing” a College horse at nightfall from the College,walking it to Blanch.,yolking it to the dray and heading to the woods surrounding the Hospital at night with the crosscut and sons and felling timber for the night.The timber would be drawn home and the horse returned before dawn.Many’s the time the farmhands in the College scratched their heads in wonderment at the exhaustion of their steed after small effort for them the next day.And manys the time his kids fell asleep in school the next day.But nobody ratted.
Incidentally I have criticised Vincent Brown and some of his guests,who never let an opportunity pass to either dig at the Church directly or as slyly as they can get away with.I understand that he was a boarder at the College at the time I am writing about.Had he experienced life on our side of the fence his outlook might be different.
One more thing needs rectifying and this I gladly do.Father Michael Cleary was a Blanchardstown man.His people owned the Greyhound Bar.We all drank there.His father paid the fines if we were caught for breaking the “bonified “drinking ban.He played football with us and if I’m not mistaken also with Dublin at Junior level in 1959 and won a Junior All Ireland.His family were and I’m sure are the most decent and respectable of people.I played football with him ,although he was a bit older.I was C hairman of Brigid’s when we helped him celebrate his silver jubilee of the priesthood in a huge tent in the Club.It was the same weekend that a fellow called Liam Skelly won an unexpected bye election for Fine Gael,after Charlie’s stroke in appointing Richard Burke a Commissioner failed. I know this because we were asked by Fine Gael to keep on the tent for an extra night to accommodate victory and we did.They paid and the Clubhouse was an inner sanctum where Garret Fitzgerald and the top boys received the chosen few from the main tent that Garrett wished to see.An innocent civil servant at the time who believed that politics was divorced from public service ,I was flabbergasted to see many serving civil servants paying homage.They wouldn’t have copped me as I was dressed as a toilet cleaner,which I was for the night.
I can say that Mick Cleary was as decent a man as I ever met.He was subsequently found to have fallen to human weakness and fathered three children while still a priest.He should have left the Priesthood,if this was what he wanted to do but didn’t for whatever reason.As events have panned out his transgressions were relatively harmless and there is no way that he or his family deserve the opprobrium heaped on him by certain commentators,one of whom I heard on Christmas Day a few years ago talk of him as though he was the devil incarnate.He was anything but and anyone from Blanch .,who knew him would agree I’d say.
Finally I send regards to Fred Farmer ,another Blanchie who I bumped into in a Station above the station we were used to recently, and whose memories in this article mirror my own.Except that he rang the Angelus bell on Good Friday.
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