LIZ DODD

Catholic. As in Claire Keegan’s acclaimed Small Things Like These – the novella about a cruel Magdalene home for unmarried mothers (the film will be released in November after winning plaudits in Berlin). A local Protestant is the redeeming character amidst the oppressive Catholic powers. Eimear McBride’s now classic A Girl is a Half-formed Thing frames Catholicism as a major influence in the sufferings of women. John Boyne, who is the most translated Irish author in the world, took the theme of priestly abuse too in A History of Loneliness. The Catholic Church looms as a dark presence in John Banville’s 1950s thrillers; and granted, it’s always handy to have a powerful collective “baddie” in a plot’s atmosphere.

THE RICH CROP of award-winning Irish writers are, of course, individuals, and their work is necessarily varied. Kevin Barry’s latest, The Heart in Winter, is a poignant portrayal of an Irish copper worker in Montana in the 1890s, and its evocative prose is not without a sense of spirituality. Donal Ryan’s lush and lovely Heart, Be at Peace is a warm evocation of local Tipperary life: the problem here is not religious oppression but the pervasiveness of drugs and the power of the dealers. Ryan’s characters, though familiar with such modernisms as porn on their mobile phones, also have recourse to holy water and a prayer to St Jude, patron of hopeless cases. Colin Barrett’s affecting Wild Houses has the same theme: young, vulnerable people in rural Ireland involved with drugs and in hock to the drug dealers. The prevailing notes are charm, and melancholy. Last year’s Booker winner, Prophet Song, sees a dystopian Irish state in the near future, where special powers accorded to the police result in a Kafkalike condition.

Is there a literary movement sharing common themes? Hard to generalise, but I do see affinities in style: a Joycean influence of near stream-of-consciousness is often favoured. Quotation marks around speech are not infrequently absent – Sally Rooney was a contemporary pioneer of this. There is often a strong sense of place, and a rooted sense of identity. If the swearing is fairly ubiquitous, so is an acute ear for the cadence of Irish speech, and a naturalness in expressing emotion. And although Ireland is affirmatively European, America seems more a familiar presence, too – working in New York, like Marian Keyes’ characters, is a normal part of life experience.

Ireland has also benefited from having been, until recently, a young society: ironically, because birth control came later to Ireland, a baby boom started in the 1970s. A younger population is often dynamic and creative. But fertility is now falling and Ireland is becoming an older society: ageing societies have less creative energy. The country has changed enormously in the last 30 years, and will change again in the next 30. This will inevitably bring yet another crop of writers whose themes may be quite different again.

Mary Kenny is an Irish journalist, broadcaster and playwright.

The nuns and bruvs of the UK and Ireland were taking social media by storm

I HAD BEEN hoping to join in with #simplylife, a newly launched and sparky social media campaign intended to introduce people to the daily life of modern monastics, and then I came down with Covid.

I am vaccinated up to my eyeballs so it was a mild bout; but it reduced my particular observation of the Hours to the following: wake up, test positive, stand on my bed and poke my head through the roof light to watch the birds, play video games, nap. A vibrant living out of the Gospel call to justice and peace it was not, but I got better quickly. Meanwhile, on X (formerly known as Twitter), the nuns and bruvs of the UK and Ireland were taking social media by storm. Their hashtag #simplylife and accompanying photos of everyday monasticism were, I think, a way both to evangelise and convert X into a brighter space. Amid the MAGA fantasists and AI-generated propaganda, it is a palate cleanser. There is a lot of cooking, cleaning, staring at blank Word documents on the computer. There is prayer: Office, Mass, and sewing. At Minster in Thanet, Benedictine Sr Walburga weaves iconically monastic Tweets (an afternoon in the orchard, playing the zither) with the complexities of a squirrel-induced power cut. None of it is spectacularly uncommon and I think that is precisely the point.

NEWLY RELEASED statistics from the National Office for Vocation (NOV) on entrants to religious life are bleak. They suggest that very few women entered apostolic congregations (like mine) in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available. The data isn’t precise because of some changes in reporting but NOV is aware of three women entering apostolic congregations. In 1987, the first year for which stats are reported, there were 55.

As a newly professed sister this news was about as welcome as my positive Covid test, and I carried it into the meetings I have with other younger sisters, most of whom are based in the US. What will our future look like?

This question was also at the heart of the recent annual assembly in Florida of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which I followed closely because of my quarentine-induced mania. “In a world steeped in division and starved for meaning and right relationship,” Sr Anne Munley told the 800 women Religious assembled, “we are growing in awareness of our call to be a transformative presence of God’s unconditional and all-inclusive love.” Maybe, I thought, we don’t need to do anything differently at all.

LOVE DOESN’T need to be spectacular: it shouldn’t be different, or uncommon. Hate, so often, is mundane and commonplace, easy to disguise. Seventytwo people were killed by the Grenfell fire because an architecture firm skipped details, and nobody cared enough about people who live in social housing. A pregnant woman and six children died in the English channel because there is not enough political appetite to re-open the safe and legal routes for asylum. The government stirred itself to suspend 30 weapons export licences to Israel; presumably, the remaining 320 licences are demonstrably for legitimate selfdefence, not ripping apart schools and refugee camps.

Perhaps what puts people off religious life is the idea that it is extraordinary. Really, it isn’t: it’s a surrendering to love that, lived well, looks utterly simple. If it looked showy, I think you would know God wasn’t the one doing the transforming.

Once I tested negative for Covid we invited a former guest, an asylee, for dinner, and we re-opened our home to the unhoused teenagers who stay with us. I am a sister because I want to live among people for whom this is an ordinary thing to do, to be within a community – a life – that makes it easy. But were I to tweet this, it would look unspectacular: a quick trot around Tesco; slicing aubergines and listening to the radio. Like playing the zither, or peeling apples, or parenting or volunteering; teaching or nursing. Simply living.

How very much like God to diffuse Godself like that, present to everyone, unremarkable. If people continue to be called to religious life, perhaps it is right that it is just as diffused, as dynamic; one particular shade of God’s love, not the entire palette.

Liz Dodd is a sister of St Joseph of Peace.

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14 SEPTEMBER 2024 | THE TABLET | 5