Enter Michael Davies...

 My first meeting with Michael Davies was the first time I did the Paris-Chartres walk.  This was in 1995.  I went with the Baden-Württemberg chapter, but I spent time with the British and American chapters too, and did my best to connect with people.  There was no Irish chapter at this stage, but there were a group of Irish people with the British chapter - this was organised by the Brandsma Review.  Michael Davies was walking with the American chapter organised The Remnant newspaper.

So the fact he was going to address the Ecclesia Dei Ireland AGM was something to look forward too.  He gave a talk about the Prayer Book revolt in Cornwall in the reign of Edward VI.  This was an interesting talk in itself but it was the rest of the meeting which exposed the weakness of Ecclesia Dei Ireland.  I am going to do a further post of the issue of Requiem Masses, especially in the Archdiocese of Dublin, but at this point, I will just describe the proceedings of the EDI meeting.  A number of people had received permission in writing to have the traditional Mass for their funerals.  This sparked a lively discussion.  At some point in the deliberations, somebody raised the question of traditional Extreme Unction.

The trouble about all this was first of all, it made a statement about the age and priorities of the group.  I have no idea how Michael Davies reacted to it.  Secondly, a lot of the petitioning was personalised.  There was no place here for developing strategies or tactics to get the traditional Mass to places it was.  The SSPX made its presence felt and I saw a couple more or less monopolise him after Mass the following day.

In the course of the meeting, the AGM voted to affiliate with the FIUV, of which Michael was then the president.  I thought this was curious.  Three years before this was voted down.  Two years before, the vote wasn't put because the society voted not to amend its constitution to exclude clergy from governing positions.  This year, that issue wasn't addressed and remained unaddressed.  But Michael was never very interested in legal niceties.  EDI applied for membership of the FIUV.

Michael Davies came to Ireland with a dual purpose.  EDI only made up one part of this.  The other was the proposal to re-order Carlow Cathedral.  Most older Irish churches, let alone cathedrals, suffered some vandalism in the name of the Second Vatican Council, but this topic would require a blog in its own right to cover the problem.  Carlow Cathedral was one of the few Irish cathedrals which was unscathed and the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Laurence Ryan, was determined he was not going to allow this distinction continue.  

The resistance group in Carlow were more determined and most of them had petitioned for the traditional Mass shortly before.  Michael certainly encouraged them and they got straight to work.  There would be a few more years of campaigning which ended up in a High Court action.  But that is all ahead of us.

Not in a vacuum: Some background

 I could work on a book about the background to the development of the Latin Mass movement in Ireland.  But at some point background information becomes an obstacle rather than an aid.

However, there was a particular trigger which had a lot of influence on the development of the traditional movement operating within Irish Church structures.  Rather there were two triggers, but both happened in 1992.

The first wall Irish Catholicism hit was the X-Case in February 1992.  In September 1983, the Eighth Amendment was enshrined in the Irish Constitution, guaranteeing the right to life of the unborn child.  Around 1992, a 14-year old rape victim's family approached Gardaí and asked could they take DNA samples from the unborn child, which they intended to have aborted, from Britain to assist in the case for the prosecution of the alleged rapist (who was subsequently convicted).  The Attorney General sought to an injunction to prevent the girl from travelling to Britain for an abortion and the High Court granted this.  Amid many protests, the Supreme Court upheld the girl's appeal as the Constitution gave due regard to the equal right to life of the mother and the girl had threatened suicide.  This brought the issue of the eighth amendment under the radar.

In May 1992, the Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh, Mgr Éamon Casey resigned following revelations he fathered a child with a US divorcee eighteen years previously.  Casey was a high profile prelate in Ireland and very much seen as a progressive, especially due to his activism in regard to US foreign policy in Latin America.  But his resignation came as a shock, however minor it was in comparison to scandals yet to unfold.

The twin crises released a strain of energy across Ireland which could have been channeled into something powerful, but leadership wasn't there.  However, I personally became more focused on the faith and its position in Ireland at the time.  One publication that emerged came from Mullingar and it was entitled The Democrat.  It was a weekly newspaper which was traditionally Catholic and nationalist.  At the time, The Irish Catholic was very weak, with a very soft focus editor Brigid Anne Ryan.  The newspaper felt the competition.  Within months, it adopted the name The Irish Democrat, but it slowly ran out of steam. 

In June that year, another publication emerged.  This was The Brandsma Review.  Through the 1980s, there was a small circulation magazine called The Ballintrillick Review which was based in Ballintrillick, Co Sligo and was edited by an New Yorker named Doris Manly who died around 1991.  The Brandsma Review took up where The Ballintrillick Review left off.  But there was one important difference.  The Brandsma's editor Nick Lowry was active in the LMSI/EDI.  The masthead of the Brandsma was Pro Vita, Pro Ecclesia Dei et Pro Hibernia which of course means for life, for the Church of God and for Ireland, but Ecclesia Dei was to refer to Pope John Paul's apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta.  This magazine was to be very important to the pro-life and pro-traditional Mass cause which was placed under the patronage of the Dutch Carmelite martyr Blessed Titus Brandsma.  Blessed Titus had a connection with Ireland too, as he studied English in Dublin's Whitefriars St and in Kinsale in the early 1930s.  My association with the magazine began in January 1993 and in 2012, I became editor.  

The principal role of The Brandsma Review was to be a reference point for traditionally minded Catholics in Ireland.  It still is, though perhaps not to the extent it could be. I have to say I was always grateful to have it in the heat of the fight.