‘So what you’re telling me,’ said the priest to the builder boyfriend, ‘is that you were brought up by Irish tinkers, moving from place to place, and have no idea whether or where you were baptised or confirmed?’
‘And you,’ he said, turning his gaze to me, ‘think your confirmation was done by the Pope at Coventry airport on his official visit to Britain in 1982, but it was a hot day and you fainted so you’re not sure if you got to the stage or were carried away?’
With their attempt to spread plant-based living in a cattle-rearing society, this lot are the new colonialists
The BB and I shifted uncomfortably in our seats in the priest’s office. ‘Would you like us to just leave now?’ the builder b suggested, leaning forward and smiling his most charming embarrassed smile.
We were perched uncomfortably on two small chairs in front of the priest’s desk, surrounded by heaps of papers and books all over the floor. The priest, a huge man with a shock of white hair, sat behind the desk taking notes. ‘No, no,’ said the priest, ‘let me think about this. It’s perfectly possible I can marry you. We just need to establish that one of you is definitely a Catholic.’
‘I am honestly, Father,’ I said. ‘I remember my first holy communion. I’ve still got the dress. And I’ve got the programme of the Pope’s visit.’ ‘Yes, yes, I see,’ said the priest, scribbling notes. ‘If we can contact the diocese that would help…’ And he fell silent as he scribbled.
The BB then started telling a very long-winded anecdote, which is what he does when he’s nervous. It was about how he had gone to pick up my new washing machine earlier that day and four lads at the store couldn’t lift it into his truck because of health and safety, so he slung it in himself. ‘These stupid EU rules, eh?’ And I kicked his leg.
The priest’s a leftie, lecturing us at mass about how we must support the EU and Palestine. Short of going in there with MAGA hats on we could hardly be doing worse.
‘And we hadn’t put the Israeli flags in the car windows yet,’ I said, as we left the parochial house, because that was the next thing on my to-do list. I sent off to eBay for these flags during a previous outbreak of anti-Semitism, and flew them in my Volvo as I drove around Surrey. I don’t recall any hassle, but that, relatively speaking, was in better times, when anti-Semitism was not nearly as scary as it is now.
I dug these flags out of a box, and was about to put them into the windows of my new Suzuki to drive around Bantry market. And to make sure I wasn’t deliberately provoking the screeching, wailing, mostly unstable-looking women waving the Palestinian flag, I was not going to do it on their day. They can have Friday market day for screeching, I’ll take Thursday. Not that I expect a logical response from them.
These women are enthusiastically waving the flag of a regime which would have no time for them. But they’re living in a country recently rated the third safest on Earth – for them anyway – and they have not experienced anything that brings them into contact with the harsh reality they misconstrue.
I am so upset for my Jewish friends feeling afraid to leave their house that I almost want to convert to Judaism to stand with them. Maybe if I can’t get this priest to ratify that I’m a proper Catholic so he can marry us I’ll try the rabbi.
A girlfriend of mine texted me recently that she thinks she has had a nervous breakdown. Another friend emailed to say he’s afraid he’s going to be prosecuted for ‘Walking while Jewish’.
I told him I may be about to get myself done for Driving while Jewish. And if you think doing that in Ireland is not as brave as doing it in Oxford Street, bear in mind the impassioned common cause made by Irish Republicans with the allegedly ‘occupied’, and consider that scary Irish Eurovision zealot: a non-binary ‘goth gremlin goblin witch’ pro-Palestinian. Lord save us.
Added to which there are these mad English blow-ins down the Mizen Head, waving a flag they think the Irish approve of to show they’re not like the occupying English. Oh, the irony, because with their attempt to spread plant-based living in a cattle-rearing society, this lot are the new colonialists.
It’s all about as messed up as any situation can be. English and Irish hippies, mostly women, and the odd bearded leftie – but who’s to say whether that’s a man these days – marching on Bantry market or Skibbereen high street, waving these enormous flags, like pirates raising the Jolly Roger, while chanting ‘From the river to the sea, Palestiiiiiiine will be free…’ And the most I have done so far is stick my head out the car window and shout: ‘You stupid cow! You wouldn’t be free if you lived under that regime!’
I told the builder boyfriend he would have to come with me. When he suggested we do some shopping, I said ‘No, let’s not park’ because I’ve only just bought the Suzuki Vitara. And there it was. I was frightened. I cannot even begin to imagine how my Jewish friends feel.
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