Michael Ryan’s views of the C of I – as perceived by Eoghan Harris – Fethard-on-Sea,Wilson’s Hospital School, and Powerscourt parish and its rector, Archdeacon Ricky Rountree
Eoghan Harris writing in The Irish Independent gave several insights into the Church of Ireland in Fethard-on-Sea,Wilson’s Hospital School, and Powerscourt parish and its rector, Archdeacon Ricky Rountree as perceived by broadcaster Michael Ryan’
He writes: Michael Ryan’s Nationwide knew the most fascinating stories are not in far foreign fields but right under our noses. He and Mary Kennedy specialised in speaking to those who until recently had kept their historical heads down: rural communities of the Church of Ireland, relatives of RIC men, families of those who fought fascism in British uniforms.
Download the programme of December 12 for a perfect example of Nationwide’s brand of pluralist broadcasting. The team visited three rural Church of Ireland communities: Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford, scene of the famous boycott of Protestant shops; Wilson’s Hospital School, Co Westmeath; and Powerscourt parish and its rector, Archdeacon Ricky Rountree
My own links with Fethard-on-Sea go back to 1985, when I received a letter from Eileen Cloney, who had been the little girl at the centre of the boycott controversy. This lit a burning fuse which I passed on to Gerry Gregg. He blew it to a flame until it exploded on to our screens as the film A Love Divided.
Likewise, I have links with Wilson’s Hospital School. My friend, Sean T Kelly, who taught there, told me its stirring history. When I spoke there some years back I was struck by the school’s simplicity, seriousness of purpose, and practical school motto: res non verba, deeds not words.
Nationwide showed the staff and students of Wilson’s Hospital School are what Thomas Davis called “racy of the soil”. There were none of the posh pretensions of some wealthy Catholic boarding schools.
Wilson’s takes boarders because it is the best way the small and scattered Protestant rural population can preserve its identity.
Like all Protestant schools, Wilson’s subsidises poorer pupils.
So if Ruairi Quinn really respects the rural Protestant tradition in the Irish Republic, he should make special financial arrangements for its boarding schools. Right now.
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For all his laid-back style, the reporter in Michael Ryan was never afraid of the rough stuff. That is why, some years ago, I called him about another story in Fethard-on-Sea.
It involved the infamous sexual abuser, the late, and not lamented, Fr Sean Fortune.
Fortune had not yet been found out. As curate of Fethard-on-Sea his facile charm had fooled many locals. But not Sean Cloney, the Roman Catholic husband who had stood by his Protestant wife during the Fifties boycott.
Forty years on, Cloney’s clear-eyed scepticism helped him see through Fortune’s facade. Although this corrupt priest was perfectly happy to abuse boys, he was fanatically against abortion. This culminated in his bizarre attempt to use the Christmas crib to make anti-abortion propaganda.
Fortune bought a plastic baby doll, daubed it with red paint like blood, and placed it in the Christmas crib of the local Catholic church, with a slogan saying abortionists were murderers of baby Jesus. But Sean Cloney felt Fortune had gone too far. He sent me a message which I passed on to Michael Ryan.
An RTE camera team arrived soon after to film the foul display. From a window, Fortune spotted the crew taking out the camera.
He burst from his house, the skirts of his soutane lifted high, raced them to the church and snatched the bloody doll from the manger before the RTE team could record the evidence of his latest bit of evil.
All these memories mean that this Christmas weekend I wing good wishes towards Michael Ryan in Wexford. And hope for his happy return to RTE.
Some broadcasters — Gay Byrne, Mary Kennedy and Brendan Balfe also come to mind — get better as they go on.
RTE should give them life contracts and coax them to shuffle off their mortal coils on camera. That’s what I call public service broadcasting.
Going to the dogs –
In this article there is also an amusing account of Posy, a pure-bred West Highland terrier,Presbyterian by nature and Dolly – a lapsed Roman Catholic cross between a French Bichon Frise and a Westie!