Contemplative Strands in Irish Identity

Bernadette Flanagan PhD

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;...

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand1.

With an artist’s mystical consciousness the Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats

senses, in the stanzas above that the end of the public conflicts—which had taken place in

Ireland in the 1916 Rising the subsequent Civil War—marks not only the passing of a time of

bitter attack and destruction, but also the end of one form of shared social perception and the

birth of a new consciousness. Many social commentators since Yeats have grappled with

interpreting that which is moving deep within the soul of Irish society in the twentieth and

twenty-first century reconfigurations of identity. Below I will focus on the identification of

some interpretative frameworks which I believe are helpful in naming the underlying

dynamics that hint at the emergence of a contemplative turn in Irish Catholic identity. The

interpretative frameworks which I assemble draw on the work of Michel deCerteau. Robert

Orsi, Karl Jaspers, and Lieven Bove.

Interpretative Frameworks: De Certeau; Orsi; Jaspers

Some of the most everyday experiences can reveal to us how our, often unexamined,

interpretative frameworks shape new realities which we encounter. One example which

comes to mind from my experience is a time I spent researching with a community which

was a new expression of urban monasticism in France. When I joined the community for

some shared meals, my framework for the structure of a meal was of no assistance in working

out how I should order my food choices. Some days just one plate circulated and I needed to

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take a portion which would be the full allocation for that day. On other occasions, a

succession of three or four plates passed around at ten minute intervals, in which case the

portion taken from any individual plate could be much smaller. I am now much more alert to

the diversity of forms which a meal can take in different countries and seek out more

information on this subject when my work involves sharing food in non-familiar settings. I

am alert to the limitations of the framework of an Irish meal for sharing food in different

cultural settings.

Given the novelty of the current spiritual landscape in Ireland, an adequate repertoire

of interpretative frameworks is essential to isolate its central features from diverse

epiphenomena. My first source of assistance in such discernment is the work of Michel de

Certeau (1925 – 1986). De Certeau, who was a French polymath, brought the disciplines of

history, philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, politics, cultural theory, and linguistics into

creative dialogue so as to develop strategies to assist in “the quest to discern in our earthly,

fallen language the now inaudible Word of God.”2 While his Jesuit identity receded over the

course of his writings, his Ignatian attunement to God present in all things remained a guiding

principle in his writings.

One particular interest which De Certeau had may be useful in reflecting on

Catholicism in Ireland today. He observed how the sixteenth and seventeenth century

flowering of mysticism in Europe took place within the context of a “shattered Christendom”.

He also noticed the fact that mystics of this era often arose from disdained social groups such

as Jews who had converted to Christianity (we remember Teresa of Avila) or from

communities ravaged by war and hardship (we remember Ignatius of Loyola)3; in other

words mystics did not arise within the settings where they might have been expected to

appear. In this context also, a turn to mysticism within the society did not point to the rise of

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private, individualised forms of coping within a fractured religious context, but rather

indicated the new social practice of religious identity.

For de Certeau a contemplative turn in society displays in a vivid manner engagement

with Christ’s empty tomb. Quoting Matthew 28:6-7 (“he is not here.......He is going ahead of

you to Galilee”), de Certeau points out that “After the collapse of certainty, the mystic

embraces the elusivity of Christ’s presence.”4 In this way, he notes, Mary Magdalene is “the

eponymous figure of the modern mystic”5. Concomitantly we are reminded by de Certeau

that a contemplative turn in society is a recurrent manifestation of ruptured Christian

discipleship. In seeking a framework to read what is happening in contemporary Irish

Catholicism, de Certeau’s writings act as a reminder of the need to begin with those who

sense the loss most deeply, those who are engaging in new journeys in search of the one

whom they have lost; those who turn to contemplative / mystical designations to name their

current engagement with Catholicism.

In this context the rise of three contemplative movements are significant. Firstly, the

John Main / Lawrence Freeman’s Christian Meditation movement in Ireland is one of 58

branches in different countries around the world. This World Community for Christian

Meditation was formed in 1991 to continue the 30 year long work of the Benedictine monk,

John Main. The community is now directed by Laurence Freeman, a student of John Main, a

Benedictine monk of the Olivetan Congregration and an English man whose mother was born

on the West End of Bere Island (Co Cork) in 1916, but emigrated to London at the age of 18.

While the WCCM International Centre and Meditation Retreat Centre are in London, it is

thriving in Ireland and has an outreach to more than 20,000 school children through its

Mediatio initiative led by the former school principal Noel Keating, as well as an outreach to

the medical profession through a year-long, 60 CPD credit programme in the Royal College

of Physicians led by consultant haematologist, Dr Barry White.

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 The second contemplative movement which is thriving in Ireland is the Thomas

Keating Centering Prayer gatherings, known as Contemplative Outreach Ireland. In this case

Ireland is one of the 47 national branches spread around the world. Contemplative Outreach

has its roots in the dream in the early 1970s of three monks living at St. Joseph’s Abbey in

Spencer, Massachusetts. Inspired by Vatican II’s universal call to holiness, these monks

sought to develop a method of Christian contemplative prayer that would be accessible to

laypeople. With no idea that their wish would eventually result in an international

organization, Fathers Thomas Keating, William Meninger, and Basil Pennington began by

trial and error to develop an easily taught prayer method. Contemplative Outreach came to

Ireland in 1994 through members of St. Aidan’s Monastery (Ferns, Co Wexford) who had

visited Thomas Keating. St Aidan’s Monastery is home to a French adoration community on

an old monastic site.

The third contemplative movement which is thriving in Ireland is that of the

Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh which is promoted through the title “Living in

the Present Moment.” In this case Ireland is one of 40 national branches. Thich Nhat Hanh’s

influence in Ireland has been greatly enhanced by the regular columns on his teachings by

Tony Bates, a clinical psychologist and the founding director of Headstrong – the National

Centre for Youth Mental Health. Tony Bates has been spending retreat time at Thich Nhat

Hanh’s French Plum Village monastery since 2004, and his popular health columns in the

Irish Times newspaper have also included accounts of time spent in the vicinity of Thomas

Merton’s monastery in Kentucky. Thich Nhat Hanhs influence was particularly evident

during his 2013 visit when he filled the 2,000-seater national convention centre in Dublin and

then delivered a five day retreat to 700 people in Killarney.

Overall then, as table 1 shows, of the 78 countries involved in these three

contemplative movements, Ireland belongs to a group of 22 countries who have followers of

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all three movements.6 There are also many other contemplative teachers who visit Ireland,

who do not have a national network but who consistently draw large crowds of attendees: the

Augustinian writer Martin Laird; the Jesuit Roshi Robert Kennedy and the Indian teachers

Korko Moses SJ; Ama Samy SJ, Br Martin from the Benedictine Ashram in Shantivanam

and Sr Ishipriya RSCJ. All of these new approaches will require further study to discern more

comprehensively what may be the shape and form of the Irish soul today.

INSERT TABLE 1

If we leave aside Certeau’s attentiveness to mystical awakening on the margins, we

may turn then to another notable group of scholars who have been to the fore in providing

critical frameworks for reading everyday spiritual practice and popular piety as a window on

a society’s soul. These theorists include the North American triad of Nancy Annerman,

Meredith McGuire and Robert Orsi7. These three scholars have collectively developed a new

way of understanding religion within a society. Rather than studying the practice of religion

as it is defined by a religious organization (for example, Catholicism as it is defined by the

Catholic Church), they draw attention to the lived expression of a religion in people's

everyday lives. In this group of three, the Harvard scholar Robert Orsi has won many awards

for his insightful analyses of the manner in which religious idioms are inherited, remembered

and reformulated, all in manners that are not primarily concerned with the re-presenting of a

tradition but rather with reinventing it in the context of new circumstances. In approaching

what these scholars would call “lived religion,” Orsi advocates an ethnographic orientation,

since such a methodology is committed to reflecting on the intricacies of the otherwise

messy, on-the-ground religious practices that illuminate the living presence of a religious

tradition within society.

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 In his research Orsi has helpfully highlighted that the sort of devotions that people

have practiced, and still do at the shrine of the Madonna on 115th Street in East Harlem, New

York (one of sites of lived religious practice which he researched) “has occupied the

absolutely lowest rungs of normative modern hierarchies of religion” in the academy.8

Similarly in Catholicism since the Second Vatican Council, devotional practices have had an

ambiguous place in the accounts of cultural religious identity. In Ireland, the visit of John

Paul II in 1979 is often perceived as the end of mass public display of devotion. Yet in my

own research of lived religion in Dublin’s inner-city—a form of religious practice frequently

associated with the apotheosis of religious decline in Ireland—I found significant attachment

to traditional devotions9. It is often the case that these continued devotional practices have not

been picked up by positivist research methods, as such methods have tended to focus on

measurable phenomena like attendance at Sunday Mass. The skewed findings which

positivist approaches can generate become clear when it is remembered that many traditional

devotions often have their key celebrations on weekdays such as Tuesday for St Anthony and

Saturday for St Rita of Cascia, rather than on Sundays. The most recent evidence of the

vitality of lived religion was the October 2013 tour of the relics of St Anthony of Padua

around the Republic of Ireland: Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Limerick, Galway and back to

Dublin. This tour drew huge crowds with up to 30,000 venerating the relics in some sites, and

yet the media coverage tended to focus exclusively on the itinerary of the trip.

When “lived religion” has unique, inscrutable indigenous features—such as holy wells

and pilgrim routes—it may occupy an even lower rung on the ladder of academic interest. In

Ireland, this cultural bias sometimes results in the invisibility of lived spirituality in any

public discussion of the current religious landscape. Indeed a brief survey of the research

taking place in the only department for the study of religion (rather than theology) in Ireland

at this time, University College Cork, confirms the lacuna regarding indigenous religious

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phenomena; the listed research interests of faculty include firstly Eastern Orthodoxy,

secondly Adivasis across central India from Rajasthan to Gujarat, and thirdly Dhammaloka an

Irish Buddhist monk in Burma. In this context it is ironic that the huge revival of devotion

centred on Ireland’s abundant collection of holy wells and pilgrimage routes receives no

attention.

To more adequately reflect on the reality of Catholicism in Ireland today, the

investigative frameworks referred to above—those focused on cultural expression and lived-

religion—may be complemented by an evolutionary model of inquiry. The German

psychiatrist and philosopher, Karl Jaspers (1883 – 1969) laid the foundations for this

perspective, which was later developed by Robert Bellah and Ewert Cousins.10 These

scholars have argued for the periodisation of spiritual consciousness into three key phases:

“pre-axial,” “first axial,” and “second axial” eras. In the 1940s Karl Jaspers chose the term

“axial” to refer to a key shift in human consciousness. The shift is associated with the first

millennium B.C.E. when the major religions—Hinduism Buddhism, Judaism and ultimately

Christianity—were established.11 Jaspers has noted that while “(t)hese paths are widely

divergent in their conviction and dogma, …common to all of them is man’s (sic) reaching out

beyond himself by growing aware of himself within the whole of Being and the fact that he

can tread them only as an individual on his own.”12 Thus for Jaspers, an earlier collective,

tribal consciousness gave way to individualized, personal appropriation of the transcendent

dimension of reality.

Scholars such as Cousins and Bellah have argued that an equally radical shift in spiritual

consciousness is happening in contemporary decades. Its depth and breadth of impact is so

comprehensive that it has been viewed as the dawn of a Second Axial Period. Some of the

salient features of this era include: a) engaging classical spiritual traditions in order to meet

contemporary challenges such as the intensification of poverty, on-going social injustice and

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expanding ecological destruction; b) developing inter-spiritual gatherings to cultivate deeper

respect for the wisdom of all the great religious teachers of the First Axial Period; and c)

exploring the mystery of Christ from the perspective of participation in the divine ground of

human consciousness. The Camaldolese monk of Big Sur, Bruno Barnhart, has referred to

this last feature as “putting on the mind of Christ” or a wisdom Christology13.

Some of the features of the second axial turn are evident in contemporary spiritual

classics such as Thomas Merton’s, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping

district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those

people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one

another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream

of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of

renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy

existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my

monastic life: but the conception of “separation from the world” that we have

in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion.14

This emerging consciousness was effectively captured in Ireland by the international author

John O’Donohue who sadly died an untimely death on 4th January 2008.15 Since

O’Donohue’s deather, the contemplative turn in Ireland has been articulated by Rev Mark

Patrick Hederman OSB, Abbot of Ireland’s only male Benedictine community at Glenstal,

Co Limerick. Hederman has named the new growth in spiritual consciousness “an

underground cathedral.” His proposal is that, at this time, the Holy Spirit is unearthing an

underground cathedral in Ireland which is replacing the pretentious, over-elaborate Irish

Catholic architecture of the twentieth century. An underground cathedral is a metaphor which

describes alternative places and spaces of worship—the Mass rock, the holy well, the

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monastic ruin.16 In this context Glenstal has set as its mission the establishment a spiritual

centre which will offer initiation into a way of life which aligns the whole person—body,

mind, and spirit—with the universe as a whole, which includes those who are in it as well as

the Three Persons of the Trinity who have invited all to share in their life.17 Taking its cue

from the enlivening influence of social reform prompted by tenth-century monasticism at

Cluny, Glenstal aims to provide many people with an atmosphere that allows them to breathe

spiritually in the manner described by T.S. Eliot in “Little Gidding,”18 the fourth and final

poem of his Four Quartets, a series of poems in which he discussed time, humanity, and

salvation: “You are not here to verify, / Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity / Or carry

report. You are here to kneel / Where prayer has been valid.” And as the poet points out,

“prayer is more / Than an order of words,” it is “the intersection of the timeless moment / Is

England and nowhere. / Never and always.19

Visitor records at Glenstal indicate that those seeking to live in alertness to the

“timeless moments” of existence now measure up to 200 visitors per day. These come to find

a still point in the rapidly changing Irish landscape and they include many psychotherapists /

counsellors, creative writers and artists, as well as retreat groups and overseas pilgrims.20

Secularisation, Post Modernity, and De-Traditionalisation

In their Irish context, both the impact of St. Anthony’s traveling relics and the visitor

records at Glensal Abbey must be interpreted against a background of rapid and fundamental

change. Their influences occur within a landscape that has been transformed to its core by

globalisation, growing multiculturalism, and the fallout from Catholic Church-sexual abuse

scandals. The impact of the latter in every corner in Ireland cannot be over-estimated as a

recent experience revealed to me. I was queuing in my local post-office on a Friday morning,

the day when pensioners collect their weekly state pension. A queue of 10-12 pensioners had

gathered and we were waiting for the de-activation of the safe code. The man at the top of the

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queue read out the heading from the recent UN human rights committee report that carried a

scathing evaluation of the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse by priests. Almost every person in

the queue contributed a comment on their own disillusionment and un-heard hurt. Those who

had attended schools run by religious were particularly upset about harsh regimes they had

experienced. In a typically Irish manner, one woman commented “and those nuns call

themselves Brides of Christ; I say God Help Jesus!”

That juxtaposition suggests the complexities of studying Catholicism in this setting.

It is true that the Republic of Ireland has one of the highest rates of affiliation to the Catholic

Church in Western Europe. In the 2011 census, out of a population of 4.2 million, 84%

identified themselves as Roman Catholic.21 However these figures conceal various sub-

identities within Catholicism. Tom Inglis, Professor of Sociology in UCD, following the

classification of the University of Massachusetts Professor of Sociology, Jay Demerath III,

who distinguished between orthodox and cultural Jews, asserts that much self-identification

with Catholicism in Ireland is cultural.22 In practice this means that people have little

personal commitment to the institutional realities of the Catholic Church, and that they are

not actively seeking to create, for example, nationally recognised public holidays that are an

alternative to those of the Catholic Church for Christmas and Easter, or alternative rituals for

life transitions such as births, marriages, and deaths.

Alongside cultural Catholicism, there is also the growing phenomenon of blended

Catholic identity such as Buddhism blended with Catholicism in daily practice. According to

the 2011 census the population of Buddhists in Ireland is 8,703, making it the fourth-largest

religion in the Republic after Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. However, the census does not

provide for dual or blended identity. The search for training and education in spiritual /

contemplative practices leads many inquirers to Buddhist centers in Ireland, listed in table

2.23 One of the longest-established (1986) of these centres is Dzogchen Beara, a Tibetan

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Buddhist Retreat venue in west Cork under the spiritual guidance of Sogyal Rinpoche, author

of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying24. This centre is also the sole training centre in for

Spiritual Care Programme in Ireland. The training programmes offered seek “to demonstrate

practical ways in which the compassion and wisdom of the Buddhist teachings can be of

benefit to those facing illness or death and also to their families and medical caregivers.”25

As part of the commitments of this centre to raising awareness about the importance of

spiritual care, they organised the 2009 the Compassion and Presence International

Conference in Killarney in Ireland, which was attended by over 500 people. No equivalent

conferences have been organised by Catholic groups despite the long history of indigenous

groups such as the Sisters of Mercy and Religious Sisters of Charity in the provision of

healthcare, including palliative care.

In the above discussion then I am reflecting on a “contemplative turn” in Irish society

which extends into such areas as accompanying the dying. During such a significant life

experience as serious illness, some Irish people seek more support than a formulized blessing:

they look for training which teaches contemplative methods that enable participants to

develop qualities of compassionate caregiving for those at vulnerable points on life’s

journeys. This is not a New Age, self-indulgent quest then, but rather one of spiritual

solidarity with those wanting presence and authenticity as they approach the end of life.

Regarding some kindred phenomena associated with New Age—reiki, homeopathy, past life

regression, soul retrieval etc.—I am in general agreement with Steve Bruce, who views these

as extension of the surgery, therapy room, gym, or beauty salon, rather than spiritual

practices. 26 However while I am in agreement that two key characteristics of Bruce’s secular

framework, i.e. the declining importance of a religion such as Catholicism in Ireland for the

operation of social institutions such as hospitals / schools, and the decline in the social

standing of religious figures in Ireland in events such as the People of the Year Awards, I am

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not convinced that there is an equivalent decline in the extent to which people engage in

spiritual practices, or conduct their lives in a manner informed by spiritual beliefs. 27 In line

with distinctions made by the American sociologist Robert Wuthnow, there is in Ireland a

growing difference between the traditional spirituality of dwelling, which emphasised the

return to the stable, unchanging location of encounter with God in church or temple, and a

new, nomadic spirituality of seeking where “individuals search for sacred moments that

reinforce their conviction that the divine exists,” even if, as Wuthnow points out, “these

moments are fleeting.”28

In Ireland this seeking is has taken a distinctive form recently, which is borrowed

from the native ancient Christian heritage of walking the Tóchar, an ancient pilgrim route.

The retrieval of this practice has attracted large cohorts of diverse people who are not against

religion per se, as in a purely secularised society, but who know that the ancient forms of

Christianity in Ireland have something to offer today’s new journey. On one single day in

July, 2013—the last Sunday in July’s annual climb of one of Ireland’s most holy mountains,

Croagh Patrick—as many as 12,000 people took part in the pilgrim walk, which starts before

dawn. Interviews by media broadcasters with a sample of these climbers reveal that they

recognise that contemporary Ireland has its faults, stretching from the rampant greed that

culminated in the Celtic Tiger and the subsequent economic collapse to the overwhelming

revelations of abuse, neglect and exploitation in industrial schools and Magdalene laundries.

Nevertheless, those interviewed indicated that they were prepared to begin (and to persevere

in) a quest for the divine presence, however, fleeting.

The recent success of Darach MacDonald’s book, Tóchar: Walking Ireland's Ancient

Pilgrim Paths witnesses further to the prominence of the spirituality of seeking at this time as

does the development of the first National Pilgrim Paths Dayon Holy Saturday 2014.29

Pilgrimage has been defined as “an attentive journey to a place of spiritual significance” and

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the practice is almost as old as recorded history. In Ireland the pilgrim journey (Tóchar) has

strong historical resonances with early Christian scholars taking pilgrimages between sites of

learning such as Clonmacnoise and Kildare; or medieval penitents journeying to Lough Derg,

Holycross and Glendalough, while still others expressed the yearnings of the pilgrims inner

longings by visiting Skellig Michael or climbing Croagh Patrick. Despite this long tradition

of Irish pilgrimage, there has been, until recently, relatively little footfall on Ireland’s ancient

pilgrim paths. In this context, Ireland’s first National Pilgrim Paths Day was aimed at

networking a growing interest in these pilgrim routes today. Whereas the new expressions of

the spiritual quest in some countries are privatised and even consumerist, it seems that in

Ireland the communal dimension of a contemplative turn is much in evidence. The

theoretical framework of the Leuven professor of Theology, Lieven Bove seems particularly

apt in providing captions for naming this current in-between state of Catholicism in Ireland.

He has suggested that the category of “de-traditionalisation,” in combination with the

category “pluralisation,” offers a conceptual map for the current religious landscape in

Ireland30. Geographic as well as cyber mobility now means that prevalence of inter-spiritual

influence has greatly accelerated. Catholicism in Ireland has not, at a grass roots level, been

replaced by secularity, but rather a plurality of traditions that are drawn on by believers in the

face of life’s grand challenges. The distinguished Irish philosopher Richard Kearney has calls

this condition “ana-theism,” a moment of creative "not knowing" that represents a break with

former sureties and is an invitation to forge new meanings from the most ancient of wisdoms.

Kearney suggests that anatheism is a breakthrough moment that lies at the heart of every

great religious journey, a choice between hospitality and hostility to the strange place to

which the paths of life lead. The figures whom Kearney chooses to illustrate the

transformative power of the choice of hospitality – Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier and Mahatma

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Gandhi – all represent the deep integration of spirituality and the practices of daily life which

the walking movement within contemporary Irish spirituality carries.

I believe that there is a strong apophatic quality in the narratives of spiritual identity

which are being constructed in this time of change. Neither the President of Ireland, nor the

Prime Minister (Taoiseach) mentioned God or Christ in their Christmas addresses in 2013, in

sharp contrast to the Christmas addresses of political leaders in Germany, the UK and the

USA. This choice perhaps enunciates our national endeavour to find a God language

adequate to the changed landscape in which the Irish Catholic identity is now located. As the

contemporary mystic, Bernadette Roberts has suggested: “This journey then, is nothing more,

yet nothing less than a period of acclimating to a new way of seeing, a time of transition and

revelation as it gradually comes upon ‘that’ which remains when there is no self.” As Roberts

emphasizes, this “is not a journey for those who expect love and bliss, rather, it is for the

hardy who have been tried by fire. . . .” Within a whirlwind of profound change, the

contemplative strands of Irish spirituality and religion seem prepared to travel toward what

Roberts can only describe as “a tough, immovable trust in ‘that’ which lies beyond the

known, beyond the self, beyond union and even beyond love and trust itself.”31

1
Printings of Yeats poem are available in: The Dial (Chicago), November 1920; The Nation

(London), 6 November 1920; Michael Robartes and the Dancer (Dundrum: Cuala, 1921);

Later Poems (London: Macmillan, 1922; 1924; 1926; 1931).

2
M. De Certeau, “Mystic Speech” in G. Ward, ed., The Certeau Reader (Oxford: Blackwell,

2000), 194.
3
Ibid., 193.

14
4
M. De Certeau, “The Weakness of Believing” in G. Ward, ed., The Certeau Reader

(Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 234.

5
M De Certeau The Mystic Fable: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1998), 81.

6
Ireland is one country amongst the 28% of countries who have branches of all three

contemplative movements. See Appendix One

7
N. Annerman, Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2006); M. McGuire: Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); R.A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and

Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950. 3rd rev. ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press,

2010); R.A Orsi, Thank You St Jude: Women’s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless

Causes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); R.A Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth:

The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars who Study Them (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2007).

8
R.A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street, xv. The New York practice which Orsi refers to is

that of Catholics presenting a wax baby to a statute of Mary, which is viewed as a real

presence of Mary in the community, in order to request reproductive assistance.

9
B. Flanagan, The Spirit of the City: Voices from Dublin’s Liberties (Dublin: Veritas, 1999).
10
E.H. Cousins, Christ of the 21st Century (Brisbane: Element, 1992)
11
Ibid.
12
K. Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History, 4.
13
B. Barnhart, The Future of Wisdom: Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity (New

York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2007).

14
T. Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Image Books, 1989), 156. First

Published in 1966. The intersection of Fourth and Walnut Streets is now Fourth and

15
Muhammad Ali Boulevard. A previous version of this experience was recorded by Merton in

his private journal on March 19, 1958, the day after his fateful visit to Louisville and the

seventeenth anniversary of his taking the vows of the Trappist order.

15
J. O’Donohue, Anam Ċara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World (New York:

HarperCollins, 1998)
16
M.P. Hederman, Underground Cathedrals (Dublin: Columba Press, 2010)
17
See Glenstal Abbey, Benedictine Monastery, accessed August 1, 2014,

http://www.glenstal.org .
18
“Little Gidding,” named after a 17th-century Anglican monastery renowned for its

devotion.
19
T.S. Eliot ‘Little Gidding’ in D. Lehman, The Oxford Book of American Poetry (New

York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 369 – 372.

20
See Mark Patrick Hederman in Conversation with Shirley Ward, Irish Association for

Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy, accessed August 1, 2014, http://iahip.org/inside-

out/issue-62-autumn-2010 .
21
By population the membership of the following groups is: Roman Catholic: 3,861,000;

Church of Ireland: 129,000; Muslim: 49,200; Orthodox: 45,200; Other Christian: 41,299;

Presbyterian: 24,600; Apostolic or Pentecostal: 14,000; No religion: 269,000; Not stated:

72,900
22
N.J. Demerath III, “The Rise of “Cultural Religion” in European Christianity: Learning

from Poland, Northern Ireland, and Sweden”, Social Compass (March 2000) 47: 127-139
23
See Appendix Two.
24
S. Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (New York: HarperCollins, 2002)
25
See Dzogchen Beara, Tibetan Buddhist Retreat Centre, accessed August 1, 2014,

http://www.dzogchenbeara.org/ .

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26
S. Bruce, God is Dead: Secularization in the West (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 3.
27
No person who offers faith-based social service has received a Person of the Year award

between 2009 and 2013. In the same time Michael O’Brien (2009) was conferred for his

dignity and raw honesty in recounting traumatic childhood experiences at Ferryhouse

Industrial School (Rosminians); Christine Buckley(2009) was conferred for her courage and

tenacity in exposing one of the darkest chapters in the history of modern Ireland at Golden

Bridge Industrial School (Sr of Mercy); Fiona Doyle(2013) was conferred for her courage,

determination and bravery in fighting for her own rights and the rights of survivors of abuse

(her father).
28
See both B. Morris, Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic Spirituality (Albany, NY: State

University of New York Press, 2000), and Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America

since the 1950s (London: University of California Press, 1998), 3.

29
See Pilgrims Path, “National Pilgrims Path Day, accessed March 1, 2014,

http://www.pilgrimpath.ie/pilgrim-paths-day/ The Paths are: (1) St. Kevin’s Way, Wicklow;

(2) Turas Cholm Cille, Gleann Cholm Cille, Co Donegal; (3) St. Finbarr’s Pilgrim Walk

from Drimoleague to Gougane Barra, Co Cork; (4) Kilcommon Pilgrim Loop. Co Tipperary;

(5) St. Declan’s Way, Co Waterford; (6) Lough Derg Pilgrim Path, Co Donegal; (7) Tochar

Phadraig Pilgrim Path, Co Mayo; (8) Clonmacnoise Pilgrim Path, Co. Offaly; (9)

Rath/Dysert Clare Pilgrim Way; (10) Cosán na Naomh, Kerry.

30
Lieven Boeve, “Religion after Detraditionalisation: Christian Faith in a Post-Secular

Europe,” Irish Theological Quarterly 70 (2005), 99 -122.

31
B Roberts, The Experience of No Self: A contemplative Journey. Rev Ed. (Albany, NY:

SUNY, 1993), 13-14

17
 1986 1977 1990 2004 1990 1978 1997 1991 2004 2007 2009
Sogyal Choje Akong Ven. Chogyam Triratna Buddhist Ven. Mahasi Ringu Tulku Taisen Sayagyi U Thich Nhat Hanh / Kelsang Gyatso
Rinpoche Tulku Rinpoche Panchen Trungpa Community Sayadaw / Rinpoche Deshimaru / Ba Khin Plum Village Gen Kelsang
TIBET TIBET Ötrul Rinpoche (formerly the Bhante TIBET Kodo Sawaki INDIA VIETNAM Tsering
Rinpoche TIBET Friends of the Bodhidhamma / JAPAN TIBET
TIBET Western BURMAE/
Buddhist Order, THAILAND
FWBO)
No Lineage
Rigpa KAGYU SAMYE PASSADDHI SOTO Little Acorn Sangha
DZONG & UCC Chaplaincy
Cork
& Clear Mind, Joyful
Heart Sangha
SOTO Elderflower Sangha New Kadampa
Galway & Plum Tree Tradition
Sangha
Mayo
Donegal Rigpa
Rigpa Mahasi Clear Loving Link to
Vipassana the Heart Sangha
Kerry
Insight
Meditation
Tipperary
Mahasi
Vipassana
Clare
Insight
Meditation
Rigpa New Kadampa
Limerick
Tradition
Roscommon
Three Jewels
Wexford
Sangha
Meath SOTO
Mahasi
Vipassana
Kilkenny
Insight
Meditation
Full Moon Sangha
Wicklow & Old Heart New
Heart Sangha
Offaly
JAMPA
Cavan
LING
Waterford Rigpa
Westmeath Rigpa
Peaceful Lake
Sligo Sangha & Open
Circle Sangha
Laois
Kildare LifeFlow Sangha
Leitrim
Monaghan
Longford
Rigpa KAGYU SAMYE SHAMBHALA BODHICHARYA Mahasi Bodhicharya SOTO Vipassana Open Heart Sangha New Kadampa
DZONG Local Centres Vipassana & Suaimhneas Tradition
Dublin
not listed Insight Sangha,
Meditation
Anam Cairde
Carlow
Sangha
Louth Vipassana

18