June 2012 – Page 2 – For the fainthearted . . .

Summer sermon series: 2/13 The Bible – The Law

“The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. ” Psalm 19:7

There seems a centuries old ambivalent attitude to the law in this country. For generations, the law was something imposed by English rulers, so disobedience, which was often simply a matter of convenience, could be justified by an appeal to patriotism—there could be no wrong in breaking rules made by a foreign occupying power.

If law-breaking was a matter of patriotism, when independence came in 1922, there should suddenly have been a nation of law-abiding people. But …

Piling up the pictures

Facebook has enabled the question to be avoided. What do you do with all the pictures?

Digital cameras and mobile phones have made possible the taking of endless pictures at virtually no cost; a generation ago, and there would have been hesitancy at taking even a fraction of the number of shots that are now taken without need for thought of the cost.

Back in the late 1980s I had a friend who was a very good amateur photographer – he even had a couple of exhibitions. Inspired by his …

Inger-land!

The post-mortems on the elimination of the England soccer team from the Euro 2012 tournament will begin. There will be little said that has not been said before. But when England play again, the fans will be there – even if it means turning up two nights in a row.

Wednesday, 21st November 1979 was a chill day, by the time it was dark, fog had begun to form across North London. Meeting a friend travelling from Brighton at Victoria Station, we caught the tube across to Saint Pancras station …

Pouring water on the fires

Midsummer’s night and the rain has been falling since midday. The expected long evenings have never occurred this year; it being so dark outside that indoors the lights have been switched on from early evening.

Twenty-odd years ago, the last two weeks of June were spent in a cottage in Connemara. The weather was mostly grey, but occasionally the clouds broke and the sun shone. Walking with friends on 24th June, at the junction of two back roads there were the ashes of a bonfire. ‘A Saint John’s Night fire’, …

On an island

Stepping from the ferry onto the harbour wall, there is a sense of being wrongly dressed for the occasion. Corduroys, an old tweed jacket and an open necked shirt create the feeling of being a schoolmaster on holiday in the 1950s; the other passengers look altogether more 21st Century. But perhaps the old jacket more evokes a feeling of the place.

There is no car ferry to the island; vehicles have arrived via a builders’ barge or by being carried on the open deck of a boat. The process of …

Leaving the women out

Search the index of Ireland Since the Famine, F.S.L. Lyons’ seminal work on Irish history, for Sheehy-Skeffington, and the name is easily found – the name of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington is easily found. Search the text and the references are all to Sheehy-Skeffington and his murder. Sheehy-Skeffington is described by Lyons as,

‘one of the best-loved figures in Dublin and a notable champion of all sorts of minority causes. He was a teetotaller, a vegetarian, a worker for women’s rights, a socialist, above all a pacifist’.

No mention whatsoever of …