Catholic Church in Ireland

You said something that you just reminded me of something that I, I had forgotten.

Um, Matt Talbot is a, uh, a saint in the Irish Catholic Church, um, tradition, uh, who, who was way, way past gray drinking.

He, he was full-on physically addicted, and he, there's this, this story told about him is that he used to go into, I think it was St. Patrick's Church, whatever church it was in Dublin, and literally hold onto the church pews and, and literally hang on it 'cause he felt like he was being pulled out of it by his addiction to the pub.

And his, his phrase is, um, "One is too many, 100 is not enough." And, uh, 'cause he knew that once I get started, that notion, like I, I'm just get more animated.

And what do you remember of that feeling in 1979? You know, the expectation that was there.

And there were often references to this being the biggest event for Catholic Ireland since the Eucharistic Congress of 1932, which had been this big international gathering when the state was in its infancy.

It was a chance for Ireland to emphasize that it was the jewel in the crown of international Catholicism.

Here was something on an even higher level.

poor mother spent a lot of time on her knees trying to rescue me from eternal damnation.

But in the end, she came round.

So tell us what the Catholic Church was like in very much Catholic Ireland prior to this visit in the 1970s.

What was going on?