Religion in a rural village in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s

Growing up in a rural village in Ireland in the 50s and 60s, religion controlled every aspect of our lives.

Times were hard but our religion taught us that if we behaved ourselves and prayed and fasted we had a good chance of getting to Heaven someday.

To this end, "saving our souls" was of the utmost importance.

Before leaving for school in the morning, we made the sign of the cross on our foreheads with Holy Water. At school, we learned that there was a God from" the existence ,order and beauty of the world which he has made" and the proof was "by raising himself from the dead Christ proved that he was truly God."

Words like Transubstantiation and ex cathedra and their meaning rolled off our seven-year-old tongues. The age of seven was when we were supposed to reach "the age of reason" and we learned all about the sins crying to Heaven for vengeance.

The Angelus bell rang out at twelve and six o’clock every day and we stopped what we were doing to pray the Angelus. At night, we knelt on the stone floor to pray the Rosary. Prayers after the Rosary were called "the Trimmings" and seemed to go on forever.

We prayed that the weather would hold good so that the crops could be saved and the turf could be brought from the bogs. We prayed for the conversion of Russia, and we prayed especially for our Missionary priests who were out in darkest Africa baptizing pagan babies. We prayed that the Baluba tribesmen would not put them in their boiling cauldrons. One Missionary priest returned to the village noticeably addled and it was whispered that the Balubas got to him. We prayed to be kept safe "from the snares of the Devil, who wandered the world seeking the ruin of souls."

All our classrooms had a Black Baby box, meant for collecting our pennies so as to feed and baptize the black babies in Africa. It had pictures of Black babies on the side. Occasionally we got a penny to buy a candy bar which was such a treat. When we passed the Black baby box and saw those soulful eyes looking at us, we forfeited the candy bar and dropped in our penny. Feeding the babies was secondary to baptizing and saving their little pagan souls.

We had two Protestant families at our school. They did not partake in religious class and kept to themselves in case Catholicism would rub off on them. We were taught that unless we had our sins absolved in the confessional, we could not get to Heaven. That left the Protestants in a precarious position. Without a confessional, we knew where they were going when they died. We were secure in the knowledge that we alone were heirs to the Kingdom of God and as long as we walked the straight and narrow we could dare hope to hear Him say when we reached the Pearly Gates, "Well done thy good and faithful servant."

It always seemed to be raining when going to Mass on Sundays. I can still smell the odor of wet wool coats mixed with incense and candle wax. People walked in from mountainous areas in wet clothes and the coughing and sneezing sounded like we were in a sanatorium. To drown out the noise, the choir, which consisted of much raw talent, blasted out the Latin hymns in our faulty alto and soprano voices. We did not have a choir director of course so it was a free for all. The poor organist tried frantically to keep up as we murdered the beautiful Tantum Ergo hymn.

The Lenten season was particularly harrowing for us children. We were expected to fast from anything we enjoyed. No sweets or sugar in our tea were allowed. Good Friday was a dark day in our house. We remained silent from twelve o’clock until three o’clock, the hours that Jesus was on the cross before he died. We visited the church in the evening for The Stations of the Cross and there we felt the full impact of our sins as a dirge was played mournfully on the organ.

In case we got complacent with the saving of our souls, the big guns called Missioners were brought to the village every three or four years. They were trained to give fire and brimstone sermons, and they did. They preached that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for us sinners to get into Heaven. We children were told that an ungrateful child was like a thorn in the mud. For the poor people of the village who were more sinned against than sinning this was a lot to bear.

In the Ireland of today, people pick and choose the parts of Catholicism that fit their lifestyles if at all. Many of the older generation look back in anger at how we were duped. With the corruption in the Catholic Church from the Vatican on down, not many take it seriously anymore. Many have left the fold or they might use the backdrop of the beautiful churches for wedding or baptism pictures.

In that great American saying, "it is what it is."

This article was submitted to the IrishCentral contributors network by a member of the global Irish community. To become an IrishCentral contributor click here.