"Some rack record "
My Freudian slip - must remember it for the future
Should read "back record" of course
I'm not too happy to see this turn into an attack on religion' I don't think this is of any value at the present time
Recent events and revelations have created a situation where religion is now finding its own level in the minds of the present generation
Even in 'Holy Ireland', it's former dominance in the nation's politics is being challenged and gradually removed - the last-ditch seems to be in education, where the church still clings on desperately to their ownership of schools and minds.
Eventually, some bright spark has to take the case to the International Courts and demand that Ireland produce an education system that caters equally for non believers and those of all faiths.
I've said often enough that we spent nearly half a century working with devout believers and in that time we came to respect their beliefs without sharing them
Among those was Tom Lenihan, a fine singer from a few miles from here who we first met and befriended in 1975 and continued to record up to his death in 1990.
Antother friend, the late Tom Munnelly, summed up old Tom's religion perfectly in the his book/cassette collection of Tom's songs, 'Mouunt Callan Garland".

"Tom was a deeply religious Roman Catholic who practised his faith without ostentation or cant. In all the years of working with him I never heard him say an unkind word word abot anybody. In making such a declaration I am aware that such claims can often be mere well-meaning clichés, but I wish to emphasise that I record it here as an objective statement of fact. This lack of complication of Tom's faith was not an indication of simplicity of mind. The simplicity Tom acquired over the years was that of wisdom and the ability to discard the peripheral while retaining core values. This was illustrated for me one day when I called to keep a recording appointment I had made with him the week before. In the meantime I had discovered that a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine at Knock for the over-sixties had been arranged on the same day. Knowing of Tom's devoutness, I more than half expected him to be gone when I called up to Knockbrack. Sure enough, there was nobody about the house when I arrived. I was walking back to my car when I was hailed from a nearby field. Tom was in there thinning cabbages. I said: 'I heard about the pilgrimage and I thought you'd be gone with them.'
'Why would I travel a hundred miles? If I want God, isn't He here with me in the garden?'
I couldn't argue with that."
Me neither - would that all Christians shared Tom's gentle and compassionate faith
Jim Carroll