by
Norman Freeman

“It’s time we made our voice heard”

It’s a familiar sight for spectators and those watching the game on television. The ball goes over the bar. The long amber placard with black lettering is hoisted. “John 3 7 “ is there to remind us that there is more to life than hurling and football. There is a spiritual dimension. According to the gospel of St. John, we must all be born again into a new way of living if we are to earn that clichéd ‘eternal reward’ so reverentially expressed in certain obituaries.

Frank Hogan, who originally comes from down around the Borrisokane direction in North Tipperary, expresses his beliefs by hoisting his placard year after year to spread the message of the gospel.

Had it not been for some unfortunate events he would have had a rival this year. The Irish Catholic Resurgence Movement (ICRM) has already made a placard of similar dimensions. It has 1TF: JP2 written across it. These cryptic letters and figures stand for One True Faith :John Paul the Second. The background is evenly divided between white and a pale yellow – the Papal colours.

The recently-formed ICRM, whose aim it is to restore the power and standing of the Church, is aware of all the useful publicity garnered by Frank Hogan and want to make an equal if not greater impact.

“Just as there can be only one winner at a match there is only One True Faith,” asserted Father Daithi Ceannt, the zealous priest who is one of the founding members of the ICRM. “Spectators have also to be reminded that there is only one real referee on this earth, the divinely-appointed referee that is the Holy Father,” he declared.

The plan was that when spectators asked “What does 1TF: JP2 stand for?” they would be given the answer and then presented with a rosary beads blessed by the Pope. It would be contained in a small leather purse with an inscription in gold on it.

Unfortunately, ill-luck dogged the acquisition of beads and purses. First of all, some two thousand rosary beads were ordered from an orphanage run by nuns on the Malabar coast of India. These beads are, with great skill and digital dexterity, fashioned from hardened cashew nuts. Their cost is minimal, even allowing for transportation; they were shipped in two wooden crates from the port of Cochin to Genoa. There they were collected by Father Daithi and three colleagues, who had a four-wheel drive at their disposal, and taken to Rome.
The ICRM apparently has approval at the highest level in Rome, if not indeed the imprimatur of the Pope himself. They were allowed to heap the beads on a canvas sheet laid out in St Peter’s Square one Sunday: when the Pope appeared on the balcony and blessed the prayerful multitude below, Father Daithi and his acolytes held up fistfuls of beads. They then felt that they were fully entitled to state that the beads had been blessed by the Holy Father.

It was a long but satisfactory journey by road and sea-ferry back to Father Daithi’s house in the parish of Hanlonstown in Co Meath. They arrived in the late evening. Without removing the crates from the vehicle, they went inside and began to rejoice with some of the wine they had bought in Italy. Several other followers of the Movement arrived to join in the celebrations.

The party started with the singing of hymns but, after some time and more wine, moved on to old favourites such as ‘Country Roads’ and ‘The Fields of Athenry’. The sounds of revelry by night must have muffled the sound of the four-wheel drive being stolen and driven away into the dark. The theft was immediately reported to the Gardaí but the vehicle was never recovered.

Then came an astonishing development. One of the three adherents, participating in the annual pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick, was dumbfounded to see the unusual type of rosary beads being sold among all the trinkets and religious bric-a-brac in several wind-blown canvass-and-wood stalls at the foot of the mountain. He inquired of the vendors where they had been acquired but got the same response from them all.
“I was sowlt them by some fella. That’s all I know”

The ICRM was going to report this to the Gardai but of course he could never be sure that these were the stolen beads. Sadly, Father Daithi came to the conclusion that the thief could well have been one of those who had joined the festivities on the night of their arrival home from Rome. In his anger he blurted out a most unchristian West of Ireland curse, “May he die roaring, like Stauntons’ pig”

There was also great disappointment when the two thousand leather purses arrived from Romania. They had been ordered by a fervent lady member of the ICRM from County Wexford, who claimed to be able to acquire them for a song. It appears, however that there was unsatisfactory, fragmented conversation about the inscription to be imprinted in gold lettering on them. Not alone was it a poor signal day for use of mobile phones but she could speak no Romanian while the Transylvanian purse supplier had only a smattering of English. No allowance seems to have been made for accents and vocal inflections.
Consternation and dismay erupted when they took the purses out of the big cardboard box. Instead of “Blessed by the Holy Father,” the inscription read “Blest be de holy Faader”. The purses could never be used because it would only bring unseemly levity or mockery to the whole exercise. Father Daithi dumped them in musty shed at the end of his large garden.

“OK, our GAA exercise may have got off to a bad start. But we are sustained by our Faith in the face of evil and misfortune,” he told a large gathering of members of the ICRM. It seems certain that in the year of Our Lord 2005 spectators and TV watchers will see the banner 1TF:JP2 proudly raised when the ball goes over the bar or even into the goal.