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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 21, 2020 7:55:40 GMT
I remember a story from Penal times about the Dominican sisters opening a school in Drogheda. Obviously they were all incognito,but soon the word got out and the sheriff/bailiff was dispatched to investigate. The Prioress met him in her best gown and put on the airs and graces from the great house she had grown up in. The conversation went like this :
"Madam, there are rumours that there are popish nuns boarding in this house"
"Sir, the ladies in this house are no more popish nuns than I am"
The sheriff accepted this, but unfortunately it only bought the sisters a little time.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 23, 2020 14:03:28 GMT
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Oct 11, 2021 11:13:10 GMT
When Father Eoin O'Growney was re-interred in Maynooth in 1903, his tomb was constructed in the shape of the Gallerus Oratory. For many years, students entered the tomb and played cards on the coffin. One night, a dean caught three students and expelled them. They found a bishop in Australia willing to take them on despite the trouble and they got ordained. They made such good priests that the bishop wrote to the President of Maynooth and asked him if he had anymore card players to send him out.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Sept 21, 2022 22:08:54 GMT
There is a story related by Giraldus Cambrensis about a conversation between an Irish bishop and a Norman bishop at the time of the invasion. The Norman pointed to the lack of martyrs in Ireland and said it was strange. The Irish bishop answered "Now that your people are here, there will be martyrs".
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Post by annie on Sept 24, 2022 7:28:08 GMT
There is a story related by Giraldus Cambrensis about a conversation between an Irish bishop and a Norman bishop at the time of the invasion. The Norman pointed to the lack of martyrs in Ireland and said it was strange. The Irish bishop answered "Now that your people are here, there will be martyrs". One of my teachers in primary school (6th class) told us that Ireland was the only country where the faith was accepted, once heard, by the whole people as being the true faith. In all other places it was imposed by force especially in those countries where protestant versions of one sort or another were favoured by the kings and their ruling classes for all subjects. We were amazed but she said this was truly the case. It explains how the faith was held onto tenaciously by the Irish and carried with them wherever they travelled.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 26, 2022 21:30:11 GMT
There is a story related by Giraldus Cambrensis about a conversation between an Irish bishop and a Norman bishop at the time of the invasion. The Norman pointed to the lack of martyrs in Ireland and said it was strange. The Irish bishop answered "Now that your people are here, there will be martyrs". One of my teachers in primary school (6th class) told us that Ireland was the only country where the faith was accepted, once heard, by the whole people as being the true faith. In all other places it was imposed by force especially in those countries where protestant versions of one sort or another were favoured by the kings and their ruling classes for all subjects. We were amazed but she said this was truly the case. It explains how the faith was held onto tenaciously by the Irish and carried with them wherever they travelled. I don't doubt the sincerity of your teacher, but I would doubt she had a broad knowledge of the spread of the faith. Martyrdom was a feature in evangelisation, but not because the faith was forced (indeed, if the faith is forced, those who resist are not martyred). In many cases, the preachers tried to win over the ruling class first alright, but that didn't necessarily mean the faith was imposed from the top down. St Patrick preached to Loegaire , the high king first too. It also took some time before Ireland was completely converted. I think that there was a hubris in the view of the Irish there too - we see just how weak we are as a Catholic nation just now. Though I very much believe that the hierarchy in Ireland threw the faith away, not that the people lost it.
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Post by annie on Sept 27, 2022 6:10:01 GMT
One of my teachers in primary school (6th class) told us that Ireland was the only country where the faith was accepted, once heard, by the whole people as being the true faith. In all other places it was imposed by force especially in those countries where protestant versions of one sort or another were favoured by the kings and their ruling classes for all subjects. We were amazed but she said this was truly the case. It explains how the faith was held onto tenaciously by the Irish and carried with them wherever they travelled. I don't doubt the sincerity of your teacher, but I would doubt she had a broad knowledge of the spread of the faith. Martyrdom was a feature in evangelisation, but not because the faith was forced (indeed, if the faith is forced, those who resist are not martyred). In many cases, the preachers tried to win over the ruling class first alright, but that didn't necessarily mean the faith was imposed from the top down. St Patrick preached to Loegaire , the high king first too. It also took some time before Ireland was completely converted. I think that there was a hubris in the view of the Irish there too - we see just how weak we are as a Catholic nation just now. Though I very much believe that the hierarchy in Ireland threw the faith away, not that the people lost it. Indeed. It was the early sixties and a time of rumblings within society. The Council hadn't yet started and while it was generally believed to be a good thing to be happening, she warned us that after every Council, sad to say, schisms erupted in the Church.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 28, 2022 7:46:45 GMT
I heard a story about a Carmelite priest vesting for Mass in Whitefriars St as an altarboy stood by. The priest was a teacher, and a native of Dublin himself, and he looked at the altar boy and asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. The altar boy answered "I want to be a priest, Father, and go out to Africa and convert all the black savages." The priest took him, probably inappropriately by today's standards and pointed to the York St flats across Aungier St from the church. "Look here. There are more white savages over there than black savages in Africa." The altar boy became a priest in the Archdiocese of Dublin and spent his priestly life working in tough inner city parishes as a result of that brief conversation.
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