TOMMY TIERNAN

The time I joined a cult

There was never any holy water in our house growing up — it’s a wonder we’ve made it this far at all! I like holy water. I have a font for it beside the front door in me own house now. I like the physicality of it. It’d be easier to understand than a gospel, sometimes. Theory is grand, like, but there is a fierce power in touch.

Ti Tighearnain was not a place of religious devotion, not even a place of religious acknowledgment. We were never brought to Mass and no priest ever darkened our door, no nun ever lit it up. It wasn’t a willful buck against consensus; there weren’t any photos of Karl Marx in the house, either. It was more like something my parents hadn’t the energy to go at. It was enough to try and survive us and each other, never mind taking God into account as well.

My father had the quare role in Cardonagh, in 1969, of being both the religion and the science teacher in the local tech. How ’bout that for a headspinner? One minute you’re insisting on experiment and proof, and the next you’re telling kids that there’s a big magic man in the sky who loves everybody.

Maybe the space around belief gave me the freedom to play with it, tell jokes about it; I wasn’t cowed down by fear on account of it. But, as a natural contrarian, it also impelled me to go looking for it, too. It felt like a new world, not something I’d inherited from my family.

Aged 16, I came back in to the house one day and said to Mam and Dad: “There’s a man living on an island off the coast of Galway and he’s mad for God, and I want to go see him. He lives in a cottage, and he used to be a priest. I’ll be back on Monday.”

’Tis hard to stop that kind of energy. The assurance I had. The pure will of it. Maybe they didn’t hear me. Anyways, I slipped out the door. I slipped back in again because I had no money. “Can I have a tenner?” Ten pounds was big money back then. Literally big. ’Twas as big as a sheet that kids could sleep under. “What do want a tenner for?” “I just told you!” “Well, tell us again.” “I’m going to hitch to the Aran Islands to spend the weekend with a ex-priest who has set up his own church based on old Celtic Christianity.”

I remember the stunned look on their faces as if to say, “What the phuck?” They must have wondered how a house of such religious apathy could produce such a fevered seeker. Perhaps it was out of guilt about their dereliction of religious instruction to me, but more than likely it was the relief of having one less child to worry about for a few days, so me mother went over to her purse and said, “Here’s £20. Have a good time.”

She looked at my father, wondering was that the right thing to say. “Have a good time?” Was that what you said when someone was going off to join a cult? He just shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t a clue either, Helen, but at least he’ll be out of the house.”

So off I went, myself and another lad who had the inclination as well. We hitched across the country, stopping in a bar in Ballinasloe for pints. Off to find God, but sure life is for living, at the same time. Sacramental lager it was. We were steamed coming out of the pub. Young and drunk and hitching. We arrived in Furbo, the far side of Galway city, and slept the night there in a friend’s house, and out to the ferry the following morning.

We were met on the pier on Inis Mor by the then renegade holy man, and brought up to the house. I thought there’d be monks and maybe a nun, but no, ’twas filled with strays. Beautiful strays like meself. Two young ones dressed in hemp making brown bread, and as soon as I saw that, I knew I was safe. Any place that makes its own brown bread can’t be all that bad. There was also a dude called Mike the Viking. He looked like a Viking, and wanted to live like one, so he got his dole transferred from Manchester and spent all day drinking cider and avoiding work. Real Viking stuff. We spent the weekend hauling seaweed up from the shore and talking about Jesus and praying. They sang some songs for us, and the bread was gorgeous.

I hitched back to Navan and retired to my room for pensive deliberations. I stayed there for two days. I didn’t eat or wash or talk to anyone. I sat at me desk and just held me head between me hands and was thinking. I was going to ‘let go’ of everything. Family, friends, food. Everything. What was important would come back.

Dad was getting a bit concerned about me, so he came to talk to me but got no response, so the genius that he was, he just went to the Valley Cafe and got chips. I came up out of the room soon after that. I could smell them down the hall, and shortly afterwards, abandoned me austerity and sat down at the table. The chips were ate and everything was back to normal again. Whatever that is...