IRELAND
Irish Examiner
April 3, 2018
By Fr. Brendan Hoban
The world has rapidly changed, and we have refused to change with it, writes Fr Brendan Hoban.
ON Good Friday, droves of people attended church services to honour the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. Good Friday, like Christmas night, still resonates with most people and recognising its significance, despite the decline in practice in the main churches, is still a compelling impulse in Irish people.
This year, too, on the first Good Friday for decades, pubs opened to allow people to enjoy the Easter bank holiday weekend — a very different, but still compelling impulse in the Irish character.
The contrast between the two worlds — devoted Christians for whom Good Friday is a sacred day and revellers enjoying the holiday weekend — couldn’t be more marked, even though many are happily part of both worlds. But lifting the ban on pubs opening on Good Friday is another marker in the definitive shift of religion to the margins of Irish society.
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