Catacomb Church: Portrait of the artist as an ageing priest - Tapa blanda

“Catacomb Church” is an English language version of a book first published in Gaelic (Irish) a decade ago as “Eaglais na gCatacómaí” by Cló Iar-Chonnacht. Some Irish writers have found religion, and Roman Catholicism in particular, to be stifling. Standún was the opposite. He loved the colours of vestments and stained glass windows, the smell of incense, the Bible stories told by local priest, Tommy Gibbons, whose melodious voice he still remembers as the voice of Jesus. Growing up in the late forties and fifties with no electricity, no running water, no indoor toilet, radio or television did not make for an unhappy childhood. There were books, left by a schoolteacher uncle who died young, Irish legends, English classics. Even the schoolteacher was imaginative. When the second Soviet Union sputnik was sent into outer space with the dog Laika on board in 1957, the school essay was: “I am a flea on Laika’s back on board the sputnik.” The world through the eye of an insect fascinated the future author. Could that now elephant sized flea still be out there?

Padraig Standún is Parish Priest of the Parish of Carna on the West coast of Ireland, He has novels published in Gaelic (irish) English, German, Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian as well as a book of local history and an account of his life as a priest. He has published a weekly article in Irish or English (or both) for the last thirty years.