McCann’s never-ending passions: politics and rock ’n’ roll

THE legendary Eamonn McCann of People Before Profit said last week that he’d be stepping down from Derry council for health reasons — a neurological condition known as ataxia.

His age was correctly given as 77 in reports, yet the last time I spoke to him, McCann was probably the only man in his mid-70s on this island wanting to spread the word about a great band out of Derry called Strength NIA — most men at that age are long past caring about great new bands out of anywhere.

I am reminded of the time I got into trouble in this paper for a profile of McCann in which I reported a critique of his, of the then Bishop of Derry.

Apparently the bishop had found fault with members of his flock who had insisted they’d seen statues moving in their locality.

McCann, implacable enemy of religious superstition though he is, still wrote of the bishop: “Here is a man who, on a daily basis, purports to transform quantities of bread and wine into the body and blood of a person who lived — allegedly — about 2,000 years ago. I think he has a cheek.”

A few days after my article appeared, I was walking down a corridor of the old Independent building, when I was approached by a senior reporter, a nice man usually, who wanted to discuss the piece with me — to offer me his compliments, I naturally assumed.

But no, he informed me that particular line had been deeply offensive to Catholics — not the criticism of the bishop, but the disrespect shown to the Eucharist, which he regarded as the most meaningful expression of his faith.

I argued that this was an article about Eamonn McCann, in which readers might expect the actual views of Eamonn McCann to be represented, but he was adamant — on the issue of disrespecting the Eucharist in any shape or form there was Zero Tolerance.

We agreed to disagree — or rather I agreed with myself that he was wrong. But still... at a time when the voices of Official Ireland would be droning away on the radio on Sunday mornings about the Sunday Independent, who’d have believed that in truth, in those corridors, there would be intense debate about esoteric matters of theology, and the true significance of transubstantiation?

To be fair, I could hardly believe it myself.

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At a time when it’s hard to relax anyway, our old friends the Stop Relaxing Brigade have never been happier. I can hear them loving those expressions of caution about the vaccines, how we shouldn’t be getting the idea that the jab will fix everything.

Yes there is truth in that, but then if the Stop Relaxing Brigade were told you could learn the Irish language just by being injected with a serum, they’d probably refuse it — because then you’d miss all the fun.

I know the vaccine is not a “magic bullet” — but lads, it’s magic enough.