So very little changes

Speaking at a Confirmation ceremony 60 years ago, then Bishop of Cork, the infamously conservative and hardline Connie Lucey, warned that all “was not well in Ireland”.

His speech, reproduced on this page, spoke of “emigration, unemployment, the emptiness of the public purse”.

However, the old-school cleric also warned of “the spirit of dissatisfaction, if not of disillusionment, with politics that is beginning to manifest itself among us”.

He said: “We have been led to expect — that we can depend on the State for all we want... that expectation is not being realised. The result is a profound sense of disappointment.”

If there is a familiar feeling about this, it is entirely understandable. Bishop Lucey’s speech remains pertinent. Any Solidarity/People Before Profit member, or whatever our tame Marxists are calling themselves this week, could cut and paste most of the Bishop’s speech with justification.

But why has so little changed? Of course we might like to blame politicians but that would be dishonest. The best way to find the answer might be to look in the mirror.