The fact that Easter is a week away is not necessarily indicated by the many religious ceremonies taking place across the country, but rather by the enormous quantity of Easter eggs for sale in the shops. A far cry from the rural Catholic Ireland that naughty octogenarian Ned knew growing up, where this celebration was dominated by anything theological rather than savory.
For this reason, the locals were grateful for Father Reilly’s kindness and friendly manner. According to Ned, “such displays of humanity were indeed rare among the Irish clergy of that day.”
They realized that this high-ranking man who heard their confession “was not the worst by a long shot.”
Furthermore, Father Reilly also seems to have been something of a feminist, going against the grain of the misogynist policies of not only the Church, but arguably even more the authorities – as they publicized these second-class citizens as unmarried mothers and their children the responsibility of the Catholic Church’s equally underestimated nuns and encouraged nuns to engage in state-sanctioned abuse and exploitation of their secular sisters.
Father Reilly certainly had plenty of time to devote to his ladies, for he had not even a colleague in the books, for the good reason that he showed no mercy to men under 30 and crucified them with such penances that they never dared again, to darken his confessional.
The filthy Baysts, Father Reilly fumed, took advantage of his innocents, who would never dream of sinning unless they had a good opportunity.
The apoplectic priest often lost his head completely, roaring such wild curses and hellish threats that the male sinner had to run from the church, to the sound of derisive giggles from the usual long line of waiting bush-tailed babies.
Fr. Reilly was aware of his unfair treatment of one side of the couple who had created Shakespeare’s two-backed beast out of some handy wood. But Ned thinks he was biased on purpose because it kept his glory box free of those bullies who so horribly and regularly “weeded out” his good but unfortunately easily misleading girls.
Because this collared man couldn’t understand, let alone accept, that “his” girls could welcome such close encounters of the panting variety. Although the biased priest found it perfectly reasonable and even necessary to listen to a slender young lady’s detailed descriptions of Segooning sessions while trying to ignore all the details of Pakie’s or Mikie’s role in them.
In fact, he developed dismissive facial expressions to erase those unwanted elements he used to express his displeasure with the hairier half of wrestling.
“Sure, the guy’s really ugly, God forbid, Moll,” he would say.
“I mean, you could find a nice guy, say, a bit like me, not a bad looking guy, you know?”
Another tactic used to try and ward off Trish’s temptation was for the priest to confess in turn, “Sure, he was talking about another stain in here last Saturday night, the toe rag! He’s no fool, this boy. Now you know I can’t tell you what he did or who, but he was fine, the bad yoke.”
Most of P. Reilly’s regulars, however, knew these old tricks.
But the frustrated cleric, forbidden to experience any sexual shenanigans shared in the steamy confessional, found solace in hearing the strange, backwards-told complaint about an alleged hero leading a young girl into the foothills of sin wish, only to then be unable to help with their insanely awaited launch. Having gotten them well up the slopes of beautiful Slievenamon of Desire, Paudy had left them there, hung out to dry, just short of the summit, and had no choice but to roll all the way down again.
A comforting reminder that even guys who were free to “Fagan” couldn’t always rise to the occasion and fulfill the erotic resurrection.
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/confessions-about-the-failure-to-fulfil-the-erotic-resurrection-41538287.html Confessions of non-fulfillment of the erotic resurrection
