Can religion find its voice and preach to the masses again?

Some 20 years after predictions were made of a ‘Catholic restoration’, the Church finds itself lost in modern Ireland, writes TP O’Mahony

When Mary Kenny published her book, Goodbye to Catholic Ireland, in 1997, even she didn’t have any real sense of how dramatic the flight from the faith would be in the years to come.

Surprisingly, given the trends she was observing, she thought there might even be a Catholic restoration, saying “in 25 or 30 years’ time another writer will be appending a postscript to the effect that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more it changes, the more it remains the same). That looks far less likely now than it did in 1997.