Withering at Bloom

When my mother asked me to go to Bloom with her (Ireland’s answer to the Chelsea Flower Show), I anticipated a small, quiet affair with pensioners, cake and flowers. What hits me on arrival in the Phoenix Park is something far more extreme. Hoards of hungry vegephiles. Flower junkies desperate for their next hit of horticulture. Huge teams of security to deal with the crowds. These gardening types can get out of hand very easily. Garda motorcycles career past me. The lockdown experienced during the Queen’s visit pales in comparison. Seemingly, if just one flower has their security breached it will be a national catastrophe.

My father and I are entrusted with looking after my eight year old nephew (his grandson) as my mother and sister in law go off to examine the plants. The nephew says his mum is “bonkers” about plants and “can’t stop thinking about them”. My mother is equally obsessed (she spent most of my child benefit on plants when I was growing up. I forgive her because while I didn’t have any shoes to wear as a kid, at least I had a nice garden to play in). We wave goodbye as they skip off, nattering in Latin about Golanthus Nivalis and the like. We head for the coffee tent to escape the carnage. We eat rocky road and chocolate buns, to the delight of the nephew. When he asks for another coke, I give it to him on one condition. If his mother asks what we got up to, he must tell her we went to a lecture by Gerry Daly, Ireland’s gardening Deus. My dad pipes up. “Gerry Daly? Is he not dead?” “Why would he be dead?” I say. “Well, he’s not on the telly anymore, is he?” The nephew practices his line about Gerry and then happily devours his second coke, his face now smeared from ear to ear with melted chocolate. Pensioners at the neighbouring table “tut tut” in disapproval, clearly insinuating that we are the worst caregivers in the world. I decide it might be time to go and look at some flowers but the suggestion is not received well. My Dad wants to see if he can sneak another coffee because the waitress guarding the hot drinks machine has left her post. The nephew tells me he hates flowers even more than girls. I ask him what his least favourite thing about flowers is. “Looking at them”. Now I am imagining his mother forcing him to sit in front of a flower bed for hours on end as she recites their Latin nomenclature. A sort of horticultural torture system, utilised for crimes against botany perhaps.

We’re late for our rendezvous with the mother and the sister in law. We stumble out of the coffee tent, exhausted from our feed. We’re supposed to be having a picnic now. My dad is desperate for the toilet because he has processed more coffee than Brazil this morning. The sister in law asks the nephew what we’ve been doing for the last hour. “We went to a lecture by Tess Daly” he says proudly. “Gerry” I whisper. “And Gerry. Tess and Gerry Daly” he says, as I vigorously rub the chocolate face-mask off his head using metholated spirits and a wire brush. How can children not feel when their faces are covered in food? Does it not feel uncomfortable? I never understood that.

© Simon Tierney 2012

The Dark Side of Fruit and Vegetables

 Simon Tierney shares a near death experience...

Two months ago I went on a health drive. I had never done this before. I was about to be 29 and I had become used to feeling “grand”: the Irishman’s answer to any inquiry about his health. An Irishman could be stretched out on a road, having been run over by a large bus and would still tell the panicking paramedics that he is “grand”. It turned out “grand” wasn’t sufficient for me anymore. I wanted to feel fantastic again.

I was aware of the incessant promulgating of the famous “5 fruit and veg”malarkey. I set about making a plan to eat five portions of fruit and veg per week. I bought two bananas, a bag of salad and two kiwis. While espousing my lofty ambitions on the subject, my friend informed me that the requirement was five fruit and veg per day. This thwarted my plans completely. How could one possibly achieve such a goal? Surely that much can’t be good for you? Would I not experience abdominal failure? Would I change colour? Where would I find time to do other things or would my days be consumed with the constant processing of vegetation?

I returned to the shop and bought twelve more bananas, eight more kiwis, three more bags of salad and several punnets of blackcurrants. My kitchen now resembled the Garden of Eden. Stepping through the door was like entering the rainforest. Monkeys started to develop a habitat in my banana grove. I could hear birds chirping as they grazed on my blackcurrants. The transformation of my kitchen from a haven of batter and frozen food treats to vegetal paradise was unnerving at first but I soon got used to it. The fruit affected me. Slowly it began to change me. I became a sort of mother-earth figure, welcoming guests to my flat by first asking them to remove their shoes and then offering them a banana smoothie served in a large conical-shaped leaf. I began to speak more slowly and played Enya on my stereo. After several weeks I abandoned electricity and used only dim candle light. I wore only a loin cloth. I stopped showering. Instead, I squeezed oranges over my body to purify the soul rather than preoccupy my mind with trivialities like cleanliness. I changed my name to Brother.

 After several weeks of my new life I began to notice some worrying physical developments. I was examining my reflection in a puddle of water, when I noticed my skin had developed a very fine layer of fur, just like a peach. My hair had developed sharp spikes, just like a bramble bush. My fingers were beginning to flake. I picked at my index finger and realised that I could peel a layer from it. Underneath the surface was a sticky substance. I licked it. It tasted sweet. I bit into it and chewed the honeyed fabric of my hand. It tasted delicious and I could not stop eating myself. Suddenly both my hands had been consumed and I had started on my left leg, which tasted like passion fruit: moist and juicy. Then I passed out.  

I woke up in a hospital several days later with a drip attached to my body and bandages around my amputated limbs. The doctor told me that I had a severe case of FADS. This is a condition that I had never heard about before. Five a Day Syndrome affects one in a thousand people and involves the extremely dangerous obsessional behaviour associated with the consumption of fruit and vegetables. The doctor informed me that I was a very lucky man because a few days more without treatment and I would indeed have become a fully formed piece of fruit. As it is, I will now live the rest of my life with a right foot which contains not bones, blood and human flesh but rather seeds, omega 3 fatty acids and calcium oxalate. I bruise easily.  

I intend to make it my life’s work to raise awareness of FADS. I am the man responsible for National FADS Day (July 21st), when we will be handing out oranges, stuffed with human flesh as a sort of controversial campaign to edify the public about the dangers of fruit. I am also hoping to conteract Jamie Oliver’s Schools Campaign by running workshops with 5-11 year olds where we will attempt to teach them about the dangers of fruit and vegetable consumption and how they can be replaced with alternatives such as chocolate and burgers.

If you are interested in FADS, please watch my documentary on RTE (July 12th, 8pm). In this programme, I visit the Central FADS Clinic in Dun Laoghaire where I meet a number of human vegetables, including a pear, an avocado (people who eat avacadoes are very prone to FADS) and a lemon who is particularly bitter about his experiences. Of particular interest is the special case of a woman who turned into a melon and then exploded when she was put next to a radiator. She is putting her life back together piece by piece.

If you are a vegetable or any of your family are vegetables, follow us on Twitter...@humanvegetable

FADS – The Delicious Killer, RTE, June 12th, 8pm

National FADS Day – June 21st 2012

Lost in Ikea - the last great challenge for mankind

                                   Ikea: the last landmass to be conquered by mankind

Last week my friend Kate and I got lost in Ikea. We had managed to traverse the highlands of bedroom interiors and had even scaled the heights of the kitchen units section with great success. Suddenly we found ourselves in deluxe bathrooms and panic struck. We had meandered off the designated trail and found ourselves in an unfamiliar world of bidets and Swedish shower heads. With the help of the GPS on my phone, we eventually made our way back to the designated trail, clothes torn, hungry and bodies trembling. They say that Antarctica was the last great land mass to be conquered by man. Last year we celebrated the achievements of Roald Amundsen and Captain Scott. These were indeed great men but what about the first man to conquer Ikea? Why do we not celebrate this arguably more impressive feat? Why do people not say they are walking the “Ikea Trail” for charity? I would happily give money to someone who set themselves such a grave challenge. For too long these brave Ikea adventurers have been overlooked. Having seen the scale of the challenge, I will now make it my life’s task to raise awareness of the perils of Ikea and to highlight the magnificent achievements of those who have conquered her successfully.

Ikea, the world’s largest furniture retailer, has one store in Ireland. Its lack of ubiquity is compensated for by the sheer size of the Ballymun premises. To call it a shop is like calling Australia an island. Sure, Australia is an island but the term doesn’t really express the enormity of the experience. Equally, I’d rather call Ikea a “destination” or a “resort” rather than a shop. I have never heard anybody say they are going to “pop into” Ikea, because that is impossible. The resort is designed in a way which does not allow for “popping into”. Rather, the customer must set aside vast tracts of time in order to navigate around the carefully laid out maze which one has no choice but to tackle, just in order to find the exit. This maze is known to Ikea staff as the “Long and Natural Path”. This somewhat celestial name suggests white light and the promise of eternal life but alas, that was not the case in my terrifying experience. The maze takes you through every conceivable aspect of the home, with the intention of luring you into buying as much as possible. Kate and I had heard about this maze before we arrived and had strong intentions of not allowing ourselves to be sucked into the beautiful displays and show rooms. No! We would be steadfast in our pursuit of three items: a bed, a sieve and a couch for my new flat. This was the list and nothing would steer us off our course. Oh dear.

522 million people visited an Ikea store in 2011. With this number of customers, the company clearly has its business model very well oiled. One can tell this immediately on entering its unforgivably yellow gates. As we approached the entrance to the maze on the first floor, I began to sweat. I could see the crowds. I felt like I was entering Jurassic Park: excited but nervous that I might die. We followed the trail of the maze, being careful to keep with the crowds. We knew if we strayed off that we may never get back on the trail again. Once we arrived at the Greater Couches Area, we had begun to loosen up. This isn’t so bad. We can do this. Our confidence had built. We tried some couches for comfort and we even took a note of the reference number of the one I wanted. Easy. By the time we got to the Kitchenware Province we were like old hands, regularly separating from each other and going off-piste into the Swedish wilderness. Our initial intention of sticking to our concise three-point shopping list had been overruled as we began to snatch at items which seemed to be such a bargain that it would be “a shame” not to use the trip to pick them up.  A Skoghall laundry basket for €5.07, yes! A Vaggis notice board for €3.95, have to have it! Soon we were throwing things in the trolley whose actual function was unknown, but they just looked so shiny. And, sure, it’s a bargain, forgetting that all these little bargains add up to a bill so large that a puffin would be proud to call one its own. At one point I saw Kate scrambling in a bargain basket for the last two-pack of toilet brushes. “Kate, you don’t need toilet brushes”. “I have to have them, they’re so cheap. The opportunity is too magnificent”, she cried. I tackled her to the floor, and began tearing her grip from the beautiful red toilet brush. “Kate, you have to let it go! I know it’s hard but we must be strong!” Her talons loosened and I lifted her shaking body away from the Toilet Accessories Region. I carried her in my arms. She mumbled something inaudible. “Yes, we are lost, but we will find our way out. Trust me”, I said as I carried her through the undergrowth of endless shower curtains and bathroom storage units. She was a broken woman. Ikea had defeated her but I had to be strong. One of us had to be strong. Otherwise all would be lost. I didn’t want to have to camp and sunset was fast approaching as we saw the millions of show lights slowly being extinguished on the horizon.

Happily my GPS came to our rescue and after foraging for leftovers in a bin, we eventually stumbled across an Ikea Park Ranger who happened to be doing one last sweep of the territory before locking the gates. A foil towel was wrapped around Kate. We had survived. Sure, we had been through something I never want my children to experience but we had survived. And we even had the couch, sieve and bed we came in for. 

© Simon Tierney 2012

The Irish chat show is exhausted

Gay Byrne, the original presenter of The Late Late Show

When The Late Late Show premiered in July 1962 it revolutionised Irish television, becoming an important catalyst for social change in this country. It is the longest running chat show in the world. Its format has been little changed in its fifty year history. Its record-breaking run has become one of the reasons to keep it alive, perhaps the reason why it hasn’t changed. The evolution of the Irish chat show is being suffocated. Now, change is required.

Ireland’s main chat shows, The Late Late Show, The Saturday Night Show and Craig Doyle Live, struggle when compared with their British equivalents. Up until recently, Michael Parkinson hosted his highly successful brand of chat and light entertainment on BBC and subsequently, ITV. Many people have compared The Late Late Show to Parkinson’s format. However, there was always a significant difference. While Parkinson’s programme usually maintained a light touch, The Late Late Show continues to straddle a fine line between celebrity guests and the controversial social issues of the day. It is this mix that The Late Late Show struggles with the most. While its original incumbent, Gay Byrne, usually managed to deal with the demands of such a heady mix, neither of his successors have had those capabilities. Hosting The Late Late Show is an almost impossible task because it requires a wit and a sense of fun on the one hand and then it requires deep penetrative skills the next. An amusing interview with Dylan Moran could suddenly segue into a panel discussion on abortion. I used to think that its current malaise was entirely due to its host, but it is not. It is the format that is to blame. It is trying to be all things to everyone. It needs an overhaul.

In British television, there is a clear separation between the light, celebrity-driven chat show and the more political and social, issues-based show. Newsnight, Question Time and other similar formats deal with the latter while Graham Norton, Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr and others deal with the former. What do these three names have in common? They all host highly successful chat shows on BBC, ITV and Channel 4, respectively. They are also all professional comedians, with backgrounds in either TV comedy or stand–up. Their pedigree is rooted in the strongly honed skills of making people laugh. The main reason for the success of this British model is the fact that their employers have invested in a particular type of host- the comedian. Not only are their opening monologues witty and entertaining but they are also sharp and at ease with their guests. They know how to banter. They are skilled at dealing with potentially awkward or difficult guests having had to face hecklers on tour in their earlier careers. People watch these British chat shows as much to see and enjoy the hosts as to see their guests. The Irish equivalent of Alan Carr’s National Television Award winning show, Chatty Man, is Craig Doyle Live. They are both intimate, small studio shows. While Carr, a professional stand-up, is consistently and reliably funny, easygoing and at ease with the task at hand, Craig Doyle is in a constant battle with himself in front of the camera. He is not just ill at ease but he is transparently contrived in the way he approaches his subjects. He tees up his jokes about an hour before telling them and has little natural flair. The irony is that the format of his show is crying out for a host like Norton or Carr. At present it is suffocating and stifled. In last Tuesday’s show, Doyle was accompanied by his panellists, Mareid Farrell and Eric Lalor. They were desperately attempting to cast their witticisms on the week’s topics of interest to little avail. Their remarks sounded wooden and scripted. At one point, Lalor was even reading out his jokes from his notepad. The comedy was forced as opposed to arising naturally from the material itself. It is this lack of symmetry between the hosts, the guests and the material that jars. When Doyle tries to be cutting edge and approaches topics like sex and male grooming, he sounds stilted and it is embarrassing to watch. The material he is being asked to handle requires a professional comedian.

There is an interesting contrast to be drawn between Ryan Tubridy’s recent interview with Cuba Gooding Jr and Graham Norton’s interview with the same man during the same week on BBC One. Gooding Jr is a famously boisterous and colourful chat show guest. He requires a confident and sharp interviewer to deal with him. Tubridy was completely in over his head while Norton handled him deftly, helped by the format of his show which has all the guests on at once, thereby alleviating the pressure of a one-on-one interview. Equally embarrassing was his recent interview with Mia Farrow. His uncomfortable line of questioning led the actress to tweet afterwards that he was “not very gracious’.

While the viewing figures are still high for The Late Late Show, one wonders if its demographic is rapidly ageing. If Irish television wishes to rescue the ailing chat show it needs to take some audacious steps in the direction of the British model. Firstly, it needs to decide what it wants to be. The Late Late Show is currently trying to be everything to everybody. It needs to throw off the shackles of being “Ireland’s voice” and concentrate on a new identity. While the Saturday Night Show has a slightly clearer sense of its intentions, it suffers from the shortcomings of its format. The one-on-one interview style in light entertainment has become redundant. The second overhaul that these two shows need is a change of hosts. If RTE wants cracking and energetic programming it needs to hire professional comedians. We are aware of RTE’s financial woes. However, resources need to be relocated in order to make Irish exports such as Dara O’Briain an offer they cannot refuse. This country has such a wealth of Irish comic talent which RTE seems to be happy to send packing off to the UK where their television networks quickly pick them up. This attitude has been typical of RTE over the years, most notably when it shrugged off Graham Linehan’s and Arthur Matthew’s Father Ted. Channel Four came along and made a fortune out of it. RTE’s commissioning of shows like The Savage Eye is to be encouraged but these opportunities need to be afforded to their chat show formats too.

The time has come for Irish television to recognise three things- the success of the British chat show needs to be replicated here and we need to invest in our home-grown comedy talent rather than exporting it. Finally, and most importantly, we need to match the material to the host. This can only happen once the television network has a clear sense of the identity and intentions of its chat shows. 

© Simon Tierney 2012

"Amen?" The Rise of Evangelicalism in Ireland

                                           The Victory Centre, Tallaght

On a Sunday morning recently, I walked through the doors of a thousand seater, American style, Evangelical mega-church. In Tallaght. This is God on a big scale. The Victory Centre is the purpose built home to the Victory Church. It is like nothing I have seen before. Evangelicalism is becoming more and more popular in Ireland. There are now thirty churches in Dublin alone. While there were less than 150 evangelical congregations in Ireland in 1980, there are now over 400, with upwards of 30,000 followers in the country, according to the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland. The influx of immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe over the past fifteen years has contributed to this rise.  The recession has played its own vital role too. With less money in their wallets, perhaps many Irish people are turning to institutions which they believe will offer meaning to their lives. While researching this article I visited two evangelical churches in Dublin. Apart from the Victory Centre, I also attended the Destiny Church on Great Strand St in Dublin city centre. Both of these churches, while being very different in their own rights, were notable for the welcome which they offer to newcomers. The emphasis on community and reaching out to people was very significant in my experience of them. During my time in these places I saw many things which I had only seen in films, if I’m honest, and also many things which would restore a person’s faith in the idea of community. Many people believe that community was sacrificed during the Celtic Tiger years. Well, there was an abundance of it here.

  

On entering the Victory Centre, I was welcomed by ‘the Greeter’. This church is highly organised, ensuring that anyone new is welcomed into the fold. As I was a newcomer, a very welcoming member, Divine, gave me a quick tour of the building. Divine is eighteen years old and described herself as a Born Again Christian. She said she found the church to be a good place for making friends and she liked the fact that the pastor was always there if she had any problems in her life. My friend Ben, whom I had brought along with me, got us a couple of coffees from the Starbucks which is on site. Their presence on the high street isn’t enough anymore apparently. New business model? Churches. Once we entered the ‘theatre’, a huge hemispherical auditorium with raked seating, the music began and the place really filled up. Hundreds of people sang along to the live band onstage playing Christian rock. I looked up to the ceiling to find the revolving lights casting their multicoloured glow. The congregation was a mix of people and ages. Speaking to one of the ushers, Sean Flynn, I asked him what it is about the Victory Centre that is so attractive to young people. “The involvement...kids are leading their peer group”. I wanted to understand why the congregation preferred this to the established Christian churches, such as the Catholic Church or the Church of Ireland. He referred to the “three hundred year old music” played in the old churches. “The young people can’t relate to it at all”. Jon Nickel, an American worshiper at the Destiny Church answered the same question. “More loving, more open. This is what I’m used to”. Both of these institutions seem to be an intentional departure from the established churches. There are very few recognisable symbols from a Catholic or Protestant establishment. Traditional prayers are not practiced. The preachers don’t wear special garments. The atmosphere is loose, casual and less bound. The congregation mill around, people talk and speak up when they feel like it. There are many choruses of “Amen” when the congregation agree with the preacher. In both churches the music and singing is central to the way in which the congregations pray. The worshippers seem to allow themselves to become immersed in the music, often raising their arms in an apparent embrace of God. Being open to this sense of release is encouraged. In fact, one of the preachers in the Victory Centre said that during their Encounter Day a worshiper had been ‘released in tongues’. This was applauded by the congregation. ‘Tongues’ or ‘glossalalia’ is thought by some to be a prophetic utterance inspired by the Holy Spirit. The use of music in both of these institutions is interesting in the sense that all the songs develop towards a crescendo which seems to provoke a sort of rapture in the congregation. One wonders if this use of music creates a true experience or a state of euphoria.

But despite the modern approach and the enticing music, one has to ask oneself what Evangelicals believe? From what I have seen, there is obviously a strong emphasis in the belief that the contents of the bible are true. While Pastor Brendan Dowling of the Destiny Church says he doesn’t preach on Creationism, he does say “I believe god made the world. I don’t believe in evolution. And my background is in science originally”. Evangelicals believe in miracles, as we will see when I discuss my experience of that in the Victory Church. It is also believed that demons do exist, as Jesus did. It is this inherent belief in the entirety of the bible that characterises evangelicalism. Equally, it is asserted in the bible that the forces of evil will do battle with god at the end of time and god will win. Evangelicals believe, according to the bible, that to belong to god’s family one must be born again, not of the flesh but of the spirit. Similarly to Catholicism, there is the belief that all people are born sinful and need salvation. And of course there is the belief in evangelism itself, that believers should spread the word. It is the strong beliefs in the bible and adherence to it that is perhaps what many people have difficulty in accepting.

‘Can the Healing Team make their way down to the stage please’, requested one of the preachers, halfway through the ceremony in the Victory Centre. What followed was the “laying on of hands”. Members of the congregation were invited to come down to the stage to be healed. Perhaps this is the evangelical version of confession. A man or woman puts their hands on one’s shoulders and talks to you. One man had two healers working on his arm and back. Presumably he had some sort of injury. As I watched this unfolding, I cast my gaze around the theatre. I was taken aback by the amount of people who had brought their own bibles with them. The congregation struck me as very different to what I was used to as a child growing up in the Catholic Church. They were very enthusiastic and involved.

Pastor Brendan of the Destiny Church says “I grew up in a Christian background but I never had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He, to me, was a guy in a book, a historical person. I didn’t know...he could be real in my life. That, to me, was a huge discovery”. Indeed, his congregation whom I met seemed to have these attributes. They were uninhibited and seemed very free to express that relationship. Brendan continued “when I was small and you went to church, the guy at the front told you what to believe and you just believed it. It’s like somebody else’s belief that you just have to carry around with you, it’s not something you’ve processed yourself”. I asked Brendan if he ever contemplated channelling his message through the Catholic Church or ever felt like trying to change it from within. “I think it would be very difficult. I’m not a Catholic personally and I don’t really see the potential there...for change”. What makes Destiny Church different to the established Christian Churches such as the Catholic Church? “People have been hurt and disappointed by the regular church”. Brendan has many issues with the way in which religion is organised and dealt with. “The thing that saddens me the most about religion is that it gives a really false view to the rest of the world of what Christianity is. It’s like a really bad advert because it puts so many people off God”. He believes that the Destiny Church offers people the opportunity to experience a very personal encounter with God and that the established church doesn’t always create an environment in which that is possible. Interestingly, over 40% of Evangelicals in Ireland come from a Catholic background.

Back in the Victory Centre it was time for the Offering. We were instructed to reach for an envelope in the back of the seat in front of us. We were invited, but not required, to put some money in the envelope or alternatively to fill out our credit card details on the back. The preacher announced that “this money becomes supernatural when it goes into your basket of faith”. The congregation must be generous in order to maintain this giant centre. Apart from the theatre, it has a crèche, a games room for teenagers, a restaurant, a cafe and offices. The Destiny Church also does a significant amount of outreach, including free English Classes and regular Shared Lunches. The emphasis on community appears to be essential to the life blood of the two churches. They are attempting to remove themselves from the established church’s “mass on Sunday” routine and rather develop a more total sense of God being an active part of one’s life.

After a lengthy ceremony in the Victory Centre (as a child I was used to timing priests to see who offered the quickest mass), we were barely out of our seats when an usher came over and asked us to come to the hospitality suite. We entered a beautiful lounge area with leather couches and smartly dressed hosts and hostesses. This was the room for the newcomers. Two members of the church sat down with us and gave us some literature on the Centre. I was asked if I would like to open myself to God. A prayer was produced on a piece of paper and I was invited to recite the prayer with the member. I politely declined and said thankyou for their help and for being so welcoming. “I will think about it”.  

The Victory Centre and the Destiny Church have some fundamental differences. Victory is a huge space planted in the middle of the residential suburbs. Its position lends itself to vast numbers of local people. While Victory also has a smaller venue on Westland Row, the Destiny Church is a much more intimate affair to the church I visited in Tallaght. Their mission is keen on investing in the lifeblood of the city centre and reclaiming the city as a place for the people. Pastor Brendan says “There’s so few churches in the city centre now because they’ve been priced out of it. The centre (of the city) has become a...moral and social wasteland. You just go there to make money and to get out and we’re trying to do the opposite. We want to love the city and create community and bring something back into it and plant something here that’s going to grow up and produce life and give to people”. Of course we must balance the growth of Evangelicalism with the fact that Ireland is continuing to secularize. As former Archbishop of Dublin, Desmond Connell, says, “Ireland is moving in a secularizing direction”. Secularization, above all else, continues to be the strongest game-changer within Irish attitudes towards religion. With the continuation of difficult economic circumstances for Ireland however, it seems that many people are searching for something different to offer meaning to their lives. Evangelical churches are attempting to answer that call through the offering of a model that is unfamiliar to many Irish people having grown up in Catholic Ireland. It appears that the investment they are making in their communities will herald a spawning of more and more evangelical churches in this country. But are they too disparate? Would they not be stronger if they brought themselves together? Pastor Brendan believes that everybody has different needs and these churches, while sharing many attributes, all offer differences which will appeal to people’s varying interests. Perhaps it is this attitude, which seems to fly in the face of the traditional Catholic model of “the one true Church”, which appeals to the many young people walking through their doors. 

© Simon Tierney 2012

The push for Christianity: Are we going forwards or backwards?

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi

This week, Baroness Warsi, the Chairperson of the Conservative Party, led a delegation to the Vatican. She made a public call for the reinstatement of Christianity in the heart of public life. Lady Warsi says she has a grave fear that “militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies...at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant”. In one sweeping statement she has undermined the vast culture of tolerance that secularisation has achieved in Europe over the past century. Warsi’s call for the refurbishment of Christianity in public life must be heeded with serious scepticism and care. Lady Warsi, a practicing Muslim, has significant clout in British politics. Her comments and indeed the presence of the Conservative Party at the head of coalition government should be treated with apprehension in the way in which the state deals with issues of religion and morality.

One of the biggest problems with the discourse on religion in the public sphere is actually the erosion of what a particular religion traditionally stands for. We live in a society in which religion has become a veritable pick and mix. Because of the freedoms that secular society affords its citizens, many people now choose the bits of their religion that they like and discard the rest. They do not seem to realise that they are members of a club in which there are certain rules, rules which were instated in an ancient time. In Catholicism’s case these rules were created two thousand years ago. In Islam’s case, not long after that. However, in order to deal with the modernity of their congregation’s dispositions, the church now attempts to dumb down many of its sacraments and rituals. It will marry people in its buildings, even if those undergoing the ritual never attend the regular services. It will make token and vague gestures of openness and goodwill towards homosexuality in a bid to appear ‘with the times’ and inclusive. It will attempt to appear respectful towards other belief systems while always harbouring its own superiority.

Lady Warsi inexplicably claims that secularisation is actually ‘deeply intolerant’. For a member of government to say this in 2012 is astonishing considering secularisation is directly responsible for the freedom of European society. Indeed, her position as the first female Muslim government minister would not have been possible without the diminishment of the churches role in Britain. As a result, her comments are a hypocrisy. Of course there are many Christian values which can benefit society but we must not forget the elements which hinder it aswell. Let’s take Lady Warsi’s words and imagine them as a reality. We must be careful when we do this because to fully imagine a Christian society we must commit to the full manifestation of its ideals. It is very easy for politicians to highlight the good bits of Christianity. This is not acceptable and it is indeed misleading. If they want to promote Christianity then they must be held accountable for all of its teachings. If Christianity once again took a central role in the arbitration of public morality there would be the resurrection of very serious positions on homosexuality, abortion and divorce, to name but a few issues. The Church of England passed a resolution in 1998, stating that homosexual acts are “incompatible with scripture”. Yes, Christianity can teach us to ‘love thy neighbour’ but it also teaches us that "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives” (Leviticus 20:13 NAB). If the British government really wants the reinstatement of Christian ideals, will its representatives be happy to stand up and say these words in the House of Commons? What about abortion, a practice that is currently legal in the United Kingdom? The Church of England, while allowing its execution in certain prohibited circumstances, ultimately says “we see abortion, the termination of that life by the act of man, as a great moral evil” (Church of England Board of Social Responsibility). The relationship between unique religions would be more difficult than it is now. Relations between Islam and the Anglican and Catholic traditions have been rocky to say the least. An editorial in the Church of England newspaper, Church of England News, says : “This progress (of the Muslim faith in the UK) has been enthusiastically assisted by this government (Labour) in particular with its hard-line multi-cultural dogma and willingness to concede to virtually every demand made by Muslims”. While Pope John Paul II did much to create a shared understanding between Muslims and Christians, his head of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees, Cardinal Stephen Fumio Hamao, issued a direct warning in 2004 to Catholic women against marrying Muslim men.

Baroness Warsi sees secularisation taking hold of society “when signs of religion cannot be displayed in public buildings”. She fails to elaborate on the enormous contributions that secularisation has made to ameliorating the quality of lives of millions of people: the liberation of gay people, the right of a woman to make her own decision on abortion, the right of a couple to dissolve their marriage, the right for people to think for themselves. The Catholic Church believes that the decision of a married couple not to have children is a selfish one. Catholicism teaches that the very function of marriage is to reproduce. Would governments stand up and say this? Where does it stop? If Christianity was once again to take a central role in public life, would the church’s teachings on creationism be advertised? Christianity firmly believes that God created the world and rejects the now widely accepted thesis on evolution. It is issues and values just like these that Christianity harbours but will rarely engage in a debate on. The reason for this is because society has advanced beyond them. A true member of the Christian church believes these things.

We are finally reaching a point in time where secularisation has become the norm in Europe, and government policies, for the large part, are impartial and liberated from the chains of religious dogma. Of course people should have the freedom to practice their faith privately and indeed a secular government allows the space for a wide variety of faiths to coexist. For a minister of a country like Britain, which prides itself on its openness, freedom and tolerance of all people, to suggest a return to the basics of Christian morality alone in public life is deeply worrying. What about the people of different faiths that live in Britain? A secular government is the only way a country can have true tolerance and equality as religious influence will inevitably lead to the exclusion of certain people and the retraction of certain rights. It has been a long struggle to get to where we are now. Let’s not go backwards. 

© Simon Tierney 2012

Survival of the newspaper

The first edition of Ireland's earliest newspaper, An Account of the Chief Occurances of Ireland, February 1659

Warren Buffet once wrote: “If cable and satellite broadcasting, as well as the internet, had come along first, newspapers as we know them probably would never have existed". The rise in online media continues to have a dramatic effect on the newspaper industry. There is an almost tidal movement towards the instant, the interactive and the most accessible. It makes me wonder about Ireland’s first ever newspaper: An Account of the Chief Occurrences in Ireland, launched in 1659. What a fantastic name for a newspaper. Accessible? Maybe not. One can’t imagine an internet news start up considering a title such as this today. This paper was a periodical newsletter whose mission was to have a weekly distribution. Not bad for the mid seventeenth century. Fast forward three hundred and fifty three years to 2012. The appetite is now for immediate news. But this is not the sole reason for the decline in newspaper circulation. The cost of buying a paper is a factor. So too is the departure from the idea of the newspaper as the great authority in our lives and a move towards public participation in the news and vitally, reaction and contribution through social media. The question is, what do we lose in the decline of the printed paper and what is there to gain?

There is an interesting disparity in the readership statistics between the UK and Ireland. In the UK, all the papers with the highest circulations are tabloids, with The Sun leading the pack. Whereas in Ireland, the broadsheets are the bestselling papers, with the Irish Independent leading the way, while the Irish tabloids are all at the bottom of the list. What does this say about our two countries? Of course there are great differences in readership across the globe. Japan, a country with less than half the total population of the Unites States has a circulation of 14 million for its top newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun. In the US, the top paper is The Wall Street Journal with a circulation of just 2 million. The Japanese thirst for print appears to be strong while Americans get their news on the internet. With the advent of social media and the proliferation of online news organisations, the print industry is struggling to cope with their dwindling readership. The Irish Times had a circulation of 114,000 in 2004 while in 2011 its circulation had fallen to just over 100,000. If we look at the longer term diminishment of readership over in the UK we can see that Britain’s biggest selling daily broadsheet, The Daily Telegraph, had a circulation of 1.5 million in 1980, whereas it now has 650,000. That is a loss of nearly a million readers in thirty years. The reasons for this decline are manifold.

The largest demographic in which readership is being lost is inevitably that of younger people. According to the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 65% of people between 18 and 29 now get their news online. How do they do this? They access newspapers’ web formats (if they are free), they use online-specific publications or alternatively they use social media such as Twitter and Facebook. What is being lost in these new media? Former Irish Times editor, Conor Brady, writing in the aforementioned, says there is a denudation of reliability, accuracy and authority. Much of the gathered information on the internet is plagiarised, he says and ‘hardly ever sourced and is frequently misrepresented’. However, young people love to use online media due to the quality of participation that it affords the user. On websites such as Irishtimes.ie or guardian.co.uk, readers can comment on articles, thus creating a veritable live discussion forum which is interactive. Young people are used to, and indeed demand, interaction, to have their say. It is this departure from the ‘newspaper on high’ of old which I believe is the big change-maker in the way we consume the news. Twitter is the culmination of this process, whereby users are now even driving the news story and indeed effecting change through mass and collective participation. We need only look at the recent example of Ryan Giggs and Imogen Thomas. In May 2011, 75,000 Twitter users broke the footballer’s superinjunction which he had in order to suppress information about his alleged affair with Thomas.

Most of the top newspapers have long realised the importance of their online editions. However, the advertising revenue they receive from the web is insufficient to compensate for the loss of circulation of their print formats. They get nothing in monitory terms from the reader itself. The content is free and therefore the readership is relatively high. This is a problem. The London Times recently made the bold move of making their online edition entirely subscription based. Of course, as a result the number of readers fell. When the Times erected their paywall in 2010 they lost 90% of their online readership. This is of course a disheartening figure for similar companies who may have been thinking of following suit. It is little wonder that their competitors such as the Telegraph and the Independent have continued to provide a free service. But the question remains: how does a newspaper in 2012 continue to be relevant and have a decent readership while also covering its costs? What appears to happen is that a newspaper company cuts its staff and fewer journalists do more work. But the resources are not there to provide the same thorough journalistic principles that these institutions once did in the pre-internet age. Former editor of the Los Angeles Times, John S. Carroll says, "Newspapers are doing the reporting in this country. Google and Yahoo aren't those people putting reporters on the street in any number. Blogs cannot afford it”. Carroll resigned in 2005 in the face of severe pressure from his parent company to cut his newsroom staff numbers. The future landscape of the newspaper industry is a rocky terrain. What is certain however is that the young demographic must be addressed. Many young people find newspapers to be too expensive. Ireland is a particularly expensive country for them. The Guardian in the UK costs £1.20 (€1.44), whereas The Irish Times costs €1.90 in this country. The disparity of 46 cent, multiplied over a year, adds up to a substantial difference. The main income from any newspaper is now derived from people over the age of 55 because they can afford it and they are used to traditional models. That section of the readership will not survive forever to support the purchase of newspapers. What will happen in twenty five years time? Will newspapers still exist in their physical manifestation or will we become nostalgic when we see them lining a chest of drawers?