Unraveling a culture of fear.

Irish Catholicism since 1950 Louise Fuller (Gill & Macmillan, 2002, 380pp) ISBN: 0717131564, $39.99

ONE THING IS CERTAIN. IF the state-run Irish radio ceased broadcasting the Angelus every day at noon and at six, I wouldn't know I was living in Ireland.

This is 'new' Ireland. An Ireland so wedded to the idea of being an economic powerhouse, it has ceased to be the Ireland the tourist board sentimentally portrays. An Ireland rocked by pedophilia and abuse scandals. An Ireland where Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, our prime minister, publicly lives with his consort. An Ireland where divorce was finally made legal in 1995.

Little remains, bar window dressing, of my Roman Catholic childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. And it is this "undoing of a culture" that Louise Fuller addresses in her new book, Irish Catholicism since 1950.

Dr. Fuller's is not a personal book. It is a scholarly one. Left unnamed, a reader would not know if the writer were male or female. Yet, from the jacket, I see that Dr. Fuller is a "Kerry woman," as we Irish are wont to say, ever-positioning ourselves geographically on this island. Myself as well. Possibly, Dr. Fuller and I share a spiritual and psychological map of this era in Ireland.

Irish Catholicism since 1950 is hardly fight reading. Yet Dr. Fuller's book catapulted me right back to the repressive Ireland of my girlhood. An Ireland where Sill was as real a member of the Irish family as the Mammy--but a member to be avoided at all cost. Dr. Fuller's detailed history of the concept of sin on this island nation makes her book required reading for all recovering Catholics.

In the 1950s, when Elvis was shimmying on television, and the 1960s, when the Beatles wanted to hold every girl's hand, the nuns laid it right out by telling girls to avoid such "near occasions of sin." Yet at what cost for a young girl seeking a bit of fun? A girl whose only recourse was to "offer it up" so that one day she might have a ringside seat in Heaven.

Sin was as real a part of Ireland then as its green fields. The avoidance of sin, with inevitable eternal punishment if you failed, was what made one a good person--not your individual conscience.

Dr. Fuller makes clear that what the world perceives of as Irish culture is a 20th century creation. During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, penal laws, religious persecution, discrimination and famine left the Irish peasant too poor to respond to a state-sponsored morality--which is exactly what came into being in 1921 when Ireland won its independence from the United Kingdom and became a republic.

As Dr. Fuller states at the outset, "one of the most outstanding features of Irish Catholic culture in the post-independence era was the extent to which the state, by the actions, words and public appearances of its representatives, legitimated the Catholic ethos." (p3)

From that time forward, the Irish government and the Catholic church were entwined in an unholy alliance designed to keep the Irish people subservient, brainwashed, pure and frightened. There was no separation of church and state. They were in each other's pockets. What's worse, the populace saw it as normal.

Just when the people of Ireland could have been enjoying newfound freedom from English rule, laws were enacted to make sure they would never have to think for themselves ever again. The sword of censorship came down on simple pleasures such as movies, sex, books, radio, dance halls, pub hours, sports and more. Many of these restrictions lasted well into the time period covered by Fuller.

The Film Censorship Act of 1923 prohibited me from seeing Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma. The reason? The heroine takes a dip in a lake and is possibly glimpsed through the rushes by her boyfriend. In 1929 and 1935, the Censorship Act and the Criminal Law Amendment, respectively, prevented the use, sale and importation of artificial contraceptives. In the 1960s, I would brave Irish Customs by bringing condoms from America for my male cousins. The passage of the Censorship of Publications Act in 1929 prohibited the sale and distribution of any book or periodical considered indecent. This nixed any work by Edna O'Brien and, needless to say, James Joyce.

The great Irish writer J.P. Donleavy weathered many a battle with the Publications Act. When his play, The Ginger Man, adapted from his novel and starring Richard Harris, opened in Dublin in 1959, this is what the 'Catholic' newspaper, the Irish Independent said:

   The current production in the Gaiety Theatre is one of the most
   Nauseating plays ever to appear on a Dublin Stage. It is an insult
   to religion and an outrage to normal feelings of decency. Now that
   it has shocked everyone with an average sense of values the best
   course is to withdraw it with the greatest possible speed.

The play lasted three performances. By the 1930s, Ireland wanted to show the world they had successfully forged a new Catholic identity by seeking an alliance with the Vatican. This alliance was triumphantly secured by the election of Eamon de Valera (born in Brooklyn, NY) as president. In 1932, 'Dev' hosted the first Eucharistic Congress in Phoenix Park, Dublin. Thousands attended an open air Mass. World-famous Irish tenor, John McCormack sang. And the press went wild. From that day forward Catholic Ireland and the nation of Ireland were viewed as synonymous.

During his St. Patrick's Day broadcast in 1949, de Valera reflected that the "Ireland we dreamed of would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis of right living, of a people who were satisfied with frugal comfort and devoted their leisure to things of the spirit." (p5)

What was he thinking about? It's a wonder any person growing up Catholic in Ireland in the 1950s recovered at all. Yet, fifty years on, I'm beginning to worry about the moral state Ireland is in today.

When Vatican II changed the habits and ceremonies of Catholic tradition, Ireland got on the bandwagon, turned the altars around and never looked back. Yet what is Ireland doing today to fill the gap vacated by ingrained--church-dictated--morality? I fear it's doing very little.

In a country where the standard response to any question or concern is "no bother," how can the Irish go through the bother of developing individual conscience? It would mean turning off the TV, throwing away cell phones and actually thinking independently as a secular country. Something the culture is struggling to do.

Ireland is going through tremendous changes--many for the good. Condoms are sold at every pharmacy. Gay and lesbian film festivals are shown around the country. From Derry to Kerry, women can hear about the wonders of Brazilian waxing from the girls of Sex and the City.

Yet much of this progress rings hollow.

Whither Ireland, its culture, its ethos? How will Ireland ever find its own sense of conscience and morality? Without 'old' Catholic Ireland to slap wrists and dictate punishment, the moral state of the country seems to be at sea.

Though Fuller brings the reader to brink of this question she offers no personal opinion. Yet she does provide a real service in detailing where Catholic Ireland has come from.

In the months before the millennium, there was a nationwide joke that by the time Ireland enters the 21st century it will be finally catching up to the 20th. In a way this is true. A culture of fear has been undone. One hopes that a new culture based on individual conscience will rise from the ashes of that old family member, sin. It will take time.

ALICE CAREY resides in County Cork, Ireland, and New York City. Her memoir, I'll Know It When I See It--A Daughter's Search For Home in Ireland, was published in 2002 by Clarkson Potter.