“The decline of the Church is perhaps felt nowhere more acutely than in Ireland”: wasn’t that small fact that Ireland has the highest Mass attendance of the whole of Europe considered?
But is it right to take the most liberal part of Ireland, Dublin (which means ‘black pool’ in English) as being entirely representative of the whole of Ireland? Can interviewing a few dozen on Dublin’s most cosmopolitan street be used to fuel pronouncements about the whole of Éire? Dublin is categorically the most ‘liberal’ part of Ireland (those voting records almost all-in-favour of divorce, and easier access to abortion show this, not to mention the pro-EU voting records). Michael Voris was in Dublin, but had he gone to but one of the provincial towns in Donegal, he may have recorded the exactly the opposite reactions. But then Ireland is regional, and exceedingly diverse for such a tiny island of only four and a half million.
Had Michael gone to Cork on a Sunday morning and got the reactions from the young, (oh, that queen of adjectives ‘young’) people spilling out of the Tridentine Latin Masses then there would have been a different video. In Cork, there is a high proportion, per rate of population, attending the Tridentine Latin Mass. But then Ireland is regional, and exceedingly diverse for such a tiny island of only four and a half million.
Interviewing individuals on a street setting has that instantaneous, this-is-what-the-people-are-saying feel. But many of the interviewees mentioned the Catholic influence of their grandparents. This should not pass without note.
During my preparations for a Valentine’s Day spread in The Times Online, I spent weeks interviewing a girl ‘Cindy’, who had not practiced the faith for years, and who had been in many different and colourful, cohabitating and otherwise relationships. Cindy had chosen chastity, after a long struggle to be free of the ‘baggage’ of sexual relationships. When she was deciding not ‘to sleep around’, very strong voices that kept coming back to her were from her Irish grandparents who had told her to be aware of men who would ‘hoodwink’ her with ‘the heebie-jeebies’ but who had ‘wicked intentions’. But, perhaps, I digress. This is a mere example of the tenacious example of Catholic Irish grandparents. Cindy has returned to Sunday Mass, and the sacraments as a whole, and quotes her Irish grandparents as being ‘the only people who really cared for me’. Is she an isolated example?
The Vortex has disabled comments for this video, partly because of the racist content of the comments. Racist or anti-Irish, I ask? Or were the comments from people who feel that those interviewed in the above video do not represent Ireland as a whole?
So according to Michael Voris, Dublin is the-whole-of-Ireland in microcosm? This doesn't sit well with this Cork woman!
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