THE shocking intermingling of war

– based on murder – and religion – based, supposedly, on love – was revealed in Fergal Keane’s gut-wrenching documentary on RTÉ radio at the weekend. The River Man dealt with the 1921 War of Independence IRA killing of a suspected informer outside Listowel in Co. Kerry.

The killers and the killed were all Catholic, and all entangled in a hellish death rattle as they recited a decade of the Rosary before the terrible deed was done.

Hovering in the background was the plaintive inquiry from a local priest as to whether the life of the IRA prisoner James Kane – widower and father of six children, fisheries inspector and former RIC man – could be spared. When told nothing could be done, the priest said, ‘God Bless’, another unreflective and macabre commentary as a life was about to be ended. What kind of a perverted notion of religiosity would allow people about to commit such a dreadful deed, and the victim of that awfulness, to believe they all stood – together – in the shadow of God’s favour and goodness?

As John Prine sang: ‘Now Jesus don’t like killin’ no matter what the reasons for…’

Even in 1921, everybody knew that.