Easter, funerals for herrings, and loss of a TV show that put a crack in my faith

The first of many crises of religious faith to strike me happened on a Good Friday a long time ago. It came when I belatedly found out that the iconic western series The Virginian had been ousted from the television schedules and replaced with hymns, scripture readings and sacred music, in efforts to piously reflect sympathy with the Saviour’s suffering.

At the time I lived from week to week for my Friday night fix of The Virginian and I could be heard in the next parish intoning the Percy Faith signature tune as I belted down the road to the television-endowed neighbours’ house to watch it.

But also, I had the utmost sympathy for our Redeemer’s prolonged agony – indeed, to this very day, I condemn the actions of those ruffian Romans and deem crucifixion to be always wrong.

It was just that I could not for the life of me see why all of that should deprive me of my weekly rendezvous with the men of Shiloh Ranch. Imagine having to go two weeks without seeing The Viriginan? You can surely see the ensuing crisis of faith.

I have for a very long time preferred Easter time to Christmas.

It undoubtedly has everything to do with the extension of daylight, bringing hope of improved weather, and nature’s renewal which never ceases to amaze.

But it also evokes less pleasant memories of enforced childhood attendance at seemingly interminable religious services all across this Holy Week.

My late beloved mother was extremely devout, and delighted in church ceremonies, making me envy my father’s quiet paganism as he kept religious practices to the absolute minimum required to fake his compliance.

My mother used to drag us to the cathedral to see the bishop bless all the sacred oils to be used in the diocese over the ensuing 12 months. I was more usually distracted by the flashbulb antics of Limerick Leader photographer Phonsie Foley, who was a neighbour and, little did I know it then, a future colleague.

As to Good Friday itself, we have since 2018 resolved that existential Irish question: Just where can you get a drink on the day of our Saviour’s death? Now the happy answer is: Everywhere!

Of course, there are those who cling to the fiction that the elaborate licensing law avoiding devices of the old days were really more fun. My father’s generation liked to buy a train ticket to Birdhill and spent the day in the Limerick railway buffet, a most depressing kip, about the size of your average built-in wardrobe.

When my pals and I came of age, and one or other of us gained access to a crock of a car, we hit for west Clare.

Yes, knocking on pub windows with a coin, to be met with the suspicious gaze of a publican, who then reluctantly conceded admittance to what turned out to be a boisterous throng, did have its fun moments.

But, like my Virginian disappointments, I long ago had formed the view that sympathy with our Saviour’s agony did not preclude access to a pint or two.

Still, the only constant is change and we certainly now live in a more secular age when mention of religious practice happens less and less.

I regret that. Religion has its place in public discourse and, while it was excessively emphasised in my childhood, it still deserves its place in the modern world.

I mentioned previously that I had been reading Kevin Danaher’s marvellous book The Year in Ireland, which looks at folk practices around the feasts, fairs and holy days.

He is especially interesting about Good Friday and various Easter-time rituals in the country.

“Cold weather was expected on a Good Friday, and welcomed as a sign of nature’s mourning for the death of Christ,” Danaher wrote. He notes that many people submitted voluntarily to privations far in excess of those required by church leaders.

People tried to remain silent between noon and three – traditionally the period when the Saviour hung on the cross.

“The sky was expected to darken at this time,” the writer notes.

After all of that, there is a real sense of relief, when Kevin Danaher turns to recounting the celebration of Easter, with feasting and much eating of eggs stored up during the Lenten fasting. By one tradition, common all across Europe, the sun actually danced on Easter Sunday morning as it rose to celebrate Christ’s resurrection.

But spare a thought for the poor old butchers, who sold no meat at all across the seven weeks of Lent.

No surprise to hear, then, that they literally cut loose after Easter, with a mock funeral for the penitential herring which had taken the place of meat during all of that feasting.

Danaher cites one reference to these “herring funerals” in Conradh na Gaeilge’s journal, An Claidheamh Soluis, dating from April 1902 and happening in Dundalk, Co Louth.

A second is recounted in Ireland’s Own in April 1916 and related to Co Monaghan.

Since little business came the butchers’ way during Lent, they liked to take vengeance on the unfortunate herring.

Recalling my own dismay at losing The Virginian on that long ago Good Friday, I am in complete agreement with those impoverished butchers.

“As to Good Friday itself, we have since 2018 resolved that existential Irish question: Just where can you get a drink on the day? I long ago formed the view that sympathy with our Saviour’s agony did not preclude access to a pint or two”