Tuam excavation: 'They got no dignity in life, they got no dignity in death'
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Irish Times
15 hours ago
- Irish Times
Why do we hoard? My mother's death made me think again about possessions
When my mother died last year, it fell to me to clear out her home in Co Laois . Sorting through her cherished hats and costume jewellery, I came to question why we hold on to so much stuff. At some point in most of our lives, we will be faced with the job of arranging what to do with the belongings of a deceased family member. It's an unenviable task, both emotionally and physically exhausting. When you speak to those who have already been through the process, they will offer sympathetic words and advise you to be ruthless. Yet, as you sort through the loved one's things, it's hard not to be drawn into what's left behind as part of an archival search for meaning. In the early months following my mother's death, I had dealt with drawers and wardrobes full of clothes, dutifully doling out special items to those who wanted them and giving rails full of clothing to a local charity sale. But soon I came across match boxes full of carefully collected sets of buttons and biscuit tins filled with old keys, tiny locks, nails, screws and, yes, more buttons, belt buckles and clasps of all sorts. It felt like I was back in the 1950s. READ MORE The generation of people born in the 1920s and 1930s grew up at a time of scarcity, in the aftermath of Ireland's revolutionary period. They went on to live with severe rationing during the second World War and after it. I remember reading once how in the early 1940s, many of the iron railings in England were removed and melted down for scrap metal to produce munitions. These more ornate outdoor railings were often replaced with old metal bed frames. Such reuse was the modus operandi of people living through wars – who learned never to throw anything out that might have another use. In more recent times of plenty, this strong sense of frugality has been replaced by an overzealous consumer culture, which has little concern for where things end up once they are discarded. As a result, when you are sorting out things from the past, you quickly realise that there are very few channels through which to pass on items meticulously stored away for some possible future use. And yet, I find myself carefully going through all this stuff in my mother's home out of respect for those who kept it. And I am unwilling to pile it all into black domestic waste bags – or, worse again, throw everything into a skip. It's a bit like panning for gold – most of what I find doesn't seem to have much value at all. So where should it all go? For example, keeping so many pens – even those once cherished Parker pens with replaceable ink cartridges – seems anachronistic in an era where branded pens are chucked out once their ink runs out. Costume jewellery belonging to Sylvia Thompson's late mother. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw A carved wooden plate belonging to Sylvia Thompson's late mother. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw On a brighter note, I have found a home for those hundreds of buttons of all shapes and sizes. They have gone to a dressmaker/designer who, hopefully, will create some new costumes where lots of buttons will become a feature rather than a functional part of a garment. I also found a local amateur dramatic society willing to take a selection of hats that my mother wore with pride. Anyone born in the early part of the last century will also remember the fashion for costume jewellery – beautiful delicate broaches with sprays of flowers, or abstract patterns with semi-precious stones embedded into their design. Or long necklaces with coloured beads of every hue you could consider. These flamboyant and inexpensive jewellery items added a touch of elegance to a dress worn to a dance. But, nowadays, few bother with such accessories. So, some of these boxes will again be stored away as they await an event to share them with the next generation, some of whom may be interested in vintage jewellery. I will also store away selected chinaware, Waterford crystal glasses and collections of brass ornaments in the hope that someone will be charmed by them in the future. In addition, I will personally cherish a carved wooden plate with an embedded musical box that played a tune as it turned on its pedestal. This was used for home-made birthday cakes when we were children. But, back to the question at the heart of this redistribution. Why do people hoard such an amount of things in the first place? Is it to remember a time when they were more energised by life? Is it for fear of losing some of their identity as they age? Or, more prosaically, is a reluctance to clear the clutter from the past and live more fully in the present just a form of laziness? Some mental health experts say that stressful experiences are often the reason for holding on to things that are no longer of use. That stress might be following a death, a divorce or another loss. Those who are socially isolated sometimes hoard more things too. The Buddhist philosophy – and, indeed, the Christian message – of not putting excess value on material possessions encourages us to live with what we need and no more. If our society functioned in a way that everything had a reuse value – that one person's trash was another person's treasure – would this help those to let go of the things they have kept but no longer need? When war or climate catastrophe forces people to leave home abruptly, they have no choice but to separate themselves from their belongings. Would your life be any different without them? Would you feel lighter and more able to focus on the present moment instead? Or would you just start collecting all over again?
Irish Times
21 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Sacred Heart picture, once ubiquitous in Irish Catholic homes, has a fascinating history
Last month, thousands gathered at Knock Shrine in Mayo for a ceremony in which Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin consecrated Ireland to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was the culmination of what was termed an 'All-Ireland Sacred Heart Crusade' begun several months earlier. For some, this event evoked memories of an Ireland long-since gone. The Sacred Heart picture, with its glowing lamp, once ubiquitous in Irish Catholic homes, is nowadays more likely to be encountered as a prop for a locally produced John B Keane play, and yet it has a fascinating history. Although it has strong medieval roots, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is usually associated with a series of visions experienced by a French nun, Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690). The devotion spread quickly and had reached Dublin by the mid-18th century, with a confraternity to the Sacred Heart established there by 1797. It was the 19th century, however, that truly universalised the image. Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, printed in Dublin in 1851, encouraged readers to 'place a picture of the adorable heart of your Saviour ... in some conspicuous place, so that the sight of it may inspire you to love him'. The beatification of Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1864 added further impetus to the devotion. By 1876, the Dublin firm JJ Lalor was advertising Sacred Heart medals in the Nation newspaper, and the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart (still in print) was launched in 1888, reaching a circulation of about 250,000 by 1920. Its editor, Fr James Cullen SJ, recommended that on New Year's Day, families should dedicate their homes to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and 'affix their signatures to the certificate of consecration, periodically renewing this commitment'. Aloysius O'Kelly's well-known 1883 painting, Mass in a Connemara Cabin, clearly shows a cheap print of the Sacred Heart on the cabin wall. The image was frequently invoked for protection. Small paper images of the Sacred Heart with a cross were circulated in Marseilles during a time of plague in 1720 with the words 'Arrête! Le Coeur de Jésus est là!' ('Stop! The Heart of Jesus is here!'). During the first World War, it was claimed that Irish and English Catholic soldiers 'put more trust in the Sacred Heart than in surgeons and nurses'. This was so much the case that the Jesuits, the great promoters of the devotion, cautioned that the Sacred Heart badge 'should not be worn as a charm or talisman to preserve the wearer from bullets and shrapnel'. It hardly worked. Counter-revolutionary forces in the Spanish civil war continued to wear Sacred Heart badges called detentebalas ('stop bullets'). From the outset, the image had a political edge. During the French Revolution, it was adopted as a royalist symbol (Sr Alacoque had been instructed to tell the French monarch to offer the whole nation to the Sacred Heart) and it became an important symbol for monarchist and integrist Catholicism in the later 19th century, which rejected liberalism and 'modern error'. The language of the Sacred Heart, which embraced that of Christ's kingship, had particular resonance when Pius IX, the king-pope besieged on all sides, lost the papal states at the time of Italy's Risorgimento. In 1733, a Spanish priest-visionary claimed that Jesus had declared, 'I will reign in Spain and with more veneration than elsewhere'. In the 1930s, the Sacred Heart image was co-opted in the war against republican forces, which was presented as a 'crusade'. In 1938, the Spanish writer Antonio María Pérez de Olaguer warned of the threat of unbridled communism, noting 'while centuries have passed ... the wheel of the Crusades keeps turning'. Returning to that ceremony in Knock last month, the use of the term 'crusade' in association with the Sacred Heart devotion in 2025 is both unfortunate and unsettling. When Ireland was first consecrated to the Sacred Heart in 1873, the Tuam Herald newspaper declared, 'In the midst of heretical Europe this Island of Saints, true to its name, rises up from insidious persecutions to proclaim its triumph and thanksgiving'. One of the more conservative US Catholic newspapers reported interviewing an attendee at Knock last month, who said, 'we have been through so much over the past few years ... with ... all this secularism eating up the soul of Ireland'. Clearly, for some, when it comes to 19th-century 'crusades' against the modern world, it's still all to play for. I tend to prefer the simpler historical examples of heartfelt devotion: the Sacred Heart hung in the cowhouse; in shop windows on Corpus Christi; or hearing of Tim Smythe, an athlete from Feakle, Co Clare, who won the 5,000m against France in 1931 and 'afterwards sent in a thanksgiving to the Messenger of the Sacred Heart for having been successful in it'. Surely we've had more than enough 'crusades' in our history. Salvador Ryan is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at St Patrick's College, Maynooth
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
The tiny ‘eggs' in this field bird's nest fungus are spore-bearing structures
What is this? I found it in my garden in Westmeath at the beginning of July. Karen Williams This a fungus – Cyathus olla – the field bird's nest fungus. It is very small, the 'nest' is only 1.5cm tall and 1cm in diameter. The 'eggs' inside are the spore-bearing structures. When they are struck by large raindrops they are dislodged from the 'nest' and become attached to grass stems where they burst open and spread their spores. They grow on soil, twigs and other organic debris and the fruiting bodies form in the summertime. Harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis var conspicua. Photograph: E Maloney I found this ladybird in my garden last week. Is it a good guy or a bad guy? E Maloney, Dublin There are melanic forms of the benign two-spot lady bird which are black with red spots. Although in its normal form the two-spot (which is a good guy) is red with two black spots, in the melanic form it is black with either four or six red spots. This one that you found is just another iteration of the dastardly harlequin ladybird – Harmonia axyridis var conspicua. So, it is a bad guy. It will eat the larvae of any native ladybird species in the garden. READ MORE Male blackbird with leucism. Photograph: Antoinette Donohue I saw this strange-looking bird at a bus stop in Maynooth. Has this bird stuck its head in a bucket of paint, or is there another explanation? Antoinette Donohue, Maynooth Indeed, on first glance it does look like that, but if you look closely, you will see that it is a male blackbird with the orange bill and characteristic stance. This bird has leucism which is a genetic mutation that causes white patches by preventing melanin being sent to some of the bird's feathers. Generally these birds do not succeed in getting mates and reproducing, so the mutation arises afresh each time rather than being inherited. Caterpillars. Photograph: Alison Kennedy Could you identify these caterpillars who are eating their way through my red currant bush? Alison Kennedy These are the caterpillars of the gooseberry sawfly – so called because it most often feeds on the leaves of gooseberry bushes. But it is not above dining on the leaves of currant bushes too and in fact a heavy invasion can strip the bushes bare. They will recover when the replete caterpillars drop off on to the soil where they pupate, overwinter and become adult sawflies. Adults feed mainly on pollen and are not often noticed. It is the larvae that get all the attention. Violet sea snail. Photograph: Anna Lopez I found this on the coast past Spanish point, Co Clare. Thought it is so beautiful and how it looks like it's knitted. Anna Lopez I spotted this blue shelled sea creature on the shoreline at White Strand Beach, Renvyle, Co Galway. It was 3cm to 4cm in diameter approximately Any idea what it is? Jane Bruton Both of these queries refer to the violet sea snail – Janthina ianthina – which lives on the surface of warmer oceans, floating on its raft of bubbles and feeding on siphonophores (jellyfish-like creatures) such as Velella , the by-the-wind sailor. It produces mucus which it agitates with its foot to mix it with air, thus filling it with bubbles. This creates a bubble raft which keeps it afloat on the surface of the sea, upside down with its shell hanging downwards. The remains of this is shown here in Anna's picture. Violet sea snails, which get detached from this raft, sink to the bottom and die soon after. The empty shells eventually get washed ashore and this is what Jane has photographed and submitted. They are quite fragile and are rare jetsam on our beaches. Please submit your nature query, observation, or photo, with a location, via or by email to weekend@
