A rapturous welcome, dismay after Mountbatten murder ruled out visit to Northern Ireland ... but just under the surface the Republic was already changing
It was a triumph for the Catholic Church as its charismatic, spiritual leader, Pope John Paul II, was welcomed by huge crowds. But even then there were chinks in the armour of a once supreme hierarchy whose hold over Ireland’s youth was rapidly diminishing, writes Kim Bielenberg
When Pope John Paul II flew into Dublin on September 29, 1979, to scenes of rapture and delight, he landed in a country that on the face of it looked radically different to the Ireland of 2018.
On his hectic journey through the country, it is estimated that the Polish pope was seen by over 2.5 million people — including 1.25 million in Phoenix Park.
Unlike Pope Francis, who arrives next Saturday, he was landing in a country where close to 90% of the population still went to Mass every week.
Divorce and homosexuality were still banned, mobile phones and the internet were unheard of, and the currency was the Irish pound rather than the euro. Money was much scarcer, but a pint of Guinness cost just 48 pence.
You could still smoke virtually anywhere — and when John Paul II boarded his Aer Lingus 747 jet bound for Dublin in Rome, and settled down to a breakfast of muesli and an Irish fry, he was told by the stewardess over the PA system: “Holy Father, distinguished visitors, you may now smoke...”
Looking back 39 years, it is easy to conclude that Ireland of the late 1970s was a much holier place. That was true, but only up to a point. Beneath the surface, it was a country undergoing rapid transformation.
At the Youth Mass in Galway on the Sunday of John Paul’s trip, a crowd of 300,000 young people chanted: “We love the Pope!”
As the Irish Independent reported, at one point “the swaying and ecstatic gathering broke into song with He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, symbolising their feelings of love of Christ’s Vicar on earth”.
But already there were many chinks in the armour of a once supreme church, and its hold over the Republic’s youth was rapidly diminishing.
The Pope may have seemed to have the whole world in his hands, but the teenagers of 1979 in Dublin and beyond were a world away from their faithful counterparts of the 1950s, and the country had changed to such an extent that their lifestyle was hardly all that different to that of their contemporaries in London and Manchester.
The closed world of the De Valera era had opened up to new influences with the arrival of television and Beatlemania in the previous decade, and Ireland’s entry into the European Economic Community in 1973. For those who had cross-channel TV, it was the era of smutty jokes on The Benny Hill Show and androgynous dance moves of David Bowie on Top of the Pops.
Some might look back to an era of devotion with eyes as misty as a rainy evening in Knock.
But many of the same teenagers who prayed with John Paul II were probably snogging in the local disco in the weeks that followed as Abba’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) topped the Irish charts.
Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical of 1968, had ruled that artificial contraception in all forms was immoral, but for a growing section of the Republic’s youth, clerical strictures were observed selectively.
In the same year as the Pope’s visit, legislation introduced by Charles Haughey allowed the sale of contraceptives on prescription by chemists for “bona fide” family planning purposes.
Already there were signs of “à-la-carte Catholicism” seeping into the Irish way of life, with women making their own decisions about the sizes of their families.
The historian James Donnelly has said the openly acknowledged purpose of the Irish hierarchy in inviting John Paul to Ireland was to halt, or at least slow, the damaging inroads of materialism and secularism on the attachment of Catholics to their ancient faith.
The Irish bishops could not have hoped for a better figure to try reinvigorate the Church in its hour of need than John Paul II, one of the most charismatic religious leaders of the 20th century.
From the moment he kissed the ground in Dublin Airport, with his red cape falling around his head, it was clear that the 59-year-old pontiff was made for the role. He had only taken over as Pope in the previous year after the short-lived papacy of John Paul I, and this was his fourth foreign tour after trips to Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Poland.
His pastoral skills were immediately apparent, as he made a beeline for the children in the crowd — and joked with them
about having the day off school.
The papacy of John Paul II has come in for justifiable criticism over his inadequate response to numerous child abuse scandals that emerged during his time as pontiff.
He has been a particular target of criticism for keeping faith with his Mexican friend Father Marcial Maciel, the serial child abuser and founder of the Legion of Christ, despite numerous reports of his nefarious activities.
But when John Paul II landed in Dublin, the issue of paedophile priests had not emerged into public discourse, and the Pope seemed to have a moral authority that was virtually unquestioned.
Here was a man who had lived under the tyranny of Nazi occupation, and guided his flock under Polish communist dictatorship. In becoming a Polish pope, he had broken a run of Italian pontiffs stretching back 455 years.
Moving over a million people into the Phoenix Park for the Saturday Mass was something of a logistical triumph for the authorities during a time of in- dustrial unrest, when Ireland was hardly renowned as a place where systems ran like clockwork.
To avoid a rock concert-type crush at the altar, 15 acres of the park was divided into corrals of 5,000 people in a grid system, and everyone was assigned a pen where they were to gather.
Up to 700,000 people were carried from designated stops across the city before dawn by public buses. At 1.25 million, the crowd was greater than the entire population of Dublin. The writer Declan Kiberd once recalled how he cycled across the city at the time of the Papal Mass in Dublin, and came across fewer than a dozen people — including two famous, agnostic poets.
As the Pope’s helicopter circled above the crowd in the park just after midday, the serried masses seemed to sway in a state of euphoria, singing and waving yellow and white flags. It was believed to be the largest gathering in Irish history — a Mass con-celebrated by nine cardinals, 100 bishops and 100 priests, with 2,500 priests and deacons distributing Holy Communion. There were 20,000 stewards and 7,000 gardai on duty on the day, and 3,000 news reporters from all over the world.
As the Pope finally appeared and his deep, resonant voice rolled out on speakers over a multitude that stretched to the horizon, a tide of emotion came rolling back.
“Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,” said the first pontiff ever to arrive in the Republic. “Like St Patrick, I too have heard the voice of the Irish calling to me... and so I have come to you — to all of you in Ireland.”
At the end of the Mass, as the Pope disappeared again into the sky in his chopper, at least one nun was seen rushing to the red carpet with garden shears — to cut up sections of the carpet as mementoes of a glorious day.
The Pope was decked out like an avuncular St Patrick on the following afternoon after his helicopter swooped out of the sky for the Youth Mass at Ballybrit racecourse in Galway — seen by many as the highlight of the visit. Those present could only liken the atmosphere at the Galway Mass to that of a rock concert.
Pope John Paul had what nearly all of the Irish bishops and archbishops of the past half century have so notably lacked — a rock-star presence.
As much as Bono, or Mick Jagger in his prime, he knew how to work a crowd, and that was most evident in Galway as he delivered his homily in his rich, accented, echoing baritone voice.
“Young people of Ireland, I love you,” he declared, and then stood for four minutes soaking up the applause, raising his hands and waving in a circular motion.
The Irish Independent picked up on the music festival atmosphere in its report: “Woodstock, the Isle of Wight and all the Ballisodares one could imagine could not give the right impression of volume and enthusiasm in Ballybrit yesterday.”
Some 450,000 people turned out when he arrived in Knock. He called the Knock Shrine the ‘goal’ of his journey to Ireland — but huge sections of the crowd were disappointed when his visit was cut short and they did not even catch a glimpse of him.
The visit took place against a background of violence in Northern Ireland, and originally it was the Pope’s intention to cross the border. In fact, responding to the Troubles across the border was one of the purposes of the Pope’s visit.
By late summer of 1979, a trip to Northern Ireland was considered doubtful because of the security risks. Negotiations were still in progress on August 27 when Lord Mountbatten and 18 soldiers were killed in attacks for which the Provisional IRA claimed responsibility. After these killings, the Pope’s programme had to be revised radically and Northern Ireland was crossed off the itinerary.
Drogheda was chosen instead as a symbolic location within the diocese of Armagh. This was where the Pope was to make his dramatic plea for peace.
Just weeks before the visit, the dairy farm of Terry Grant was chosen as the venue.
Tens of thousands of Catholics denied the chance of a papal visit in the six counties, streamed across the border to the Louth farm, and by the time the Pope arrived, there were 300,000.
It was here that the Pope delivered a line aimed at the terrorists that still resonates across the decades: “On my knees, I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence.”
But any hopes that the IRA or the loyalists would suddenly lay down their arms were quickly dashed as the killing continued. During the visit, IRA supporters kept a low profile, but a spokesman warned that the war would go on — and DUP leader Ian Paisley branded the Pope “a liar, an imposter, and the anti-Christ”.
In the years that followed the visit, we have tended to forget the Pope’s attempt to reaffirm the Church’s traditional teaching.
On the conflict between career and family commitments, he said: “May Irish mothers, young women and girls not listen to those who tell them that working at a secular job, succeeding in a secular profession, is more important than the vocation of giving life and caring for that life as a mother.”
In Galway, the Pope urged young people to stand by their religious and moral principles. Warning of the future, he said: “The lure of pleasure, whenever and wherever it can be found, will be strong.”
By the time the Pope addressed crowds in Maynooth and Limerick on his final day, he had well and truly won the country over. The Irish Independent described him as “the man who smiled and even wept as he encountered the tremendous wave of affection which flowed out from the people to him”.
The Pope, according to the paper’s editorial, was “the man who aroused their emotions, who had overjoyed them with his presence and who had appealed to them in every sentence he used”. Of all the events on the trip, the Mass in Galway was perhaps seen as the most auspicious by the church authorities.
Here was a crowd of 300,000 young, spellbound by the Catholic spiritual leader. Surely, the future strength of the Church was guaranteed.
It was somewhat ironic that the crowd was at a high pitch having been warmed up by the Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey and Fr Michael Cleary, who cajoled and jollied them along.
Casey and Cleary, with their populist touch and crowd-pleasing manner, were probably seen at the time as standard bearers for this more youthful church of the future.
But this was to unravel in spectacular fashion when news emerged much later of their sons and lovers.
At the end of his visit, the pontiff confidently uttered the Latin phrase ‘semper fidelis’ — always faithful — to his devoted followers, and he might have hoped that his devotees would accede to his wishes.
The papal visit had been a triumph for the Church as the spiritual leader was welcomed with open arms. Although there is still a faithful core, and they will turn out in huge numbers next weekend, the visit proved to be a false dawn for Holy Catholic Ireland.
Rocked by scandal and slow to adapt, the hierarchy was unable to inspire young people in the decades that followed in the same way as Pope John Paul II during those uplifting autumn days of 1979.