On December 28th, 1898, when four pious women and a Jesuit priest at St Francis Xavier's Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin, pledged themselves to total abstinence for life from drink, they triggered off one of the most unlikely movements in a mainstream religion in the 20th century, the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart.

By the end of the Great War, 20 years later, no fewer than 200,000 of their compatriots had followed suit, styling themselves "Pioneers" and undertaking what was known as the "Heroic Offering". And this at a period when one could still be forgiven for thinking that "drunken" and "Irish" formed one word.

Today, in spite of the dramatic changes in lifestyle of recent years, the association maintains its numbers at about 200,000 in Ireland itself and 300,000 abroad, particularly in Africa.

The temperance movement, in any of its forms, is a relatively modern phenomenon. An inspiration of the humanitarian reformers of the Age of Enlightenment, it began gaining ground throughout the 18th century among Quakers, Methodists and Presbyterians. It was only when the Capuchin friar Father Theobald Matthew "took the pledge" on April 10th, 1838, in Cork, at the insistence of a Quaker friend, William Martin, that it began to make any headway in Catholicism.

His great crusade, however, dramatically successful though it was, barely survived the Great Famine. It did, however, reveal a potential for idealism in the Irish that was not lost on the Wexford-born founder of the Pioneers, Father James Cullen, who resolved "to imitate, however feebly, the great example of Father Matthew".

He believed that "prayer and fasting", even of a small group, could help exorcise the "demon" of intemperance.

This idealism had to be mobilised. It was in devotion to the Sacred Heart, the dominant Catholic spirituality of the time, as Diarmaid Ferriter accurately observes in A Nation of Extremes, the recently published history of the Pioneers, that Cullen saw a "more vigorous and sensitive medium [than simply administering the pledge] through which to advocate abstention."

The vessel of abstention could rise only on the tide of devotion. Cullen took it at the flood.

A real Napoleon for organisation, according to one of his Jesuit colleagues, he set about the unlikely task of sobering up the Irish with extraordinary single-mindedness and attention to detail.

But an even more significant resemblance to the great military strategist than organisational ability was in his capacity for the unexpected. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the opening gambit of his campaign, as he explained some years later in the City Hall, Cork, in 1911.

"I told them [the four ladies] that during many years I had endeavoured to begin temperance work at the foot-rung of the ladder, by administering the total abstinence pledge to all who sought it, and with results which, though moderately successful, were by no means what I had anticipated. Henceforth, with their aid, I would begin at the top rung of the ladder and, gradually coming down, would stretch out a saving hand to those who needed it below.

"In other words, into this Pioneer Association, only those on whose example of life perseverance we could thoroughly rely would be admitted. Only those could be members who had never taken a strong drink at all or had taken it in strict moderation, or who, by long probation, had proved their stability in the practice of total abstinence."

The name of the new association would be the "Pioneer Total Abstinence League of the Sacred Heart". The perdurance of the Pioneers over 100 years testifies to a rare subtlety in the apostolic approach of their founder.

Within seven years came approval from Pope Pius X in October 1905. This was official recognition that the Pioneer option was in harmony with both scripture and tradition.

The Pioneer position that moderation in drinking is a good thing but that giving it up permanently for a high ideal is a better thing is a simple extension of the understanding of fasting in Christian tradition. However, convincing the Roman Curia that any cause could justify foregoing one's vino must have been no mean feat.

From the beginning there were only three simple conditions of membership: twice daily recitation of a prayer for the conversion of excessive drinkers, total abstinence from intoxicating drink, and public wearing of a small emblem of the Heart of Christ, a symbol of divine love.

The significant exception is during illness when alcohol is prescribed by a doctor. This is, perhaps, an instance of the situation envisaged in 1 Timothy 5:23 (the text most likely to discomfit Pioneers), where Paul advises Timothy: "You should give up only drinking water and have a little wine for the sake of your digestion and frequent bouts of illness that you have."

The generally-accepted interpretation of this passage is that Timothy was fasting, something Paul approved of. However, for reasons of health, he advises him to mitigate his fast. In Pioneer terms Paul was the closest thing to a doctor to be found. We do not know what he would have recommended once Timothy's digestion had improved!

In May 1889 Father Cullen wrote in the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, another of his foundations still happily with us: "Many solutions to the sad problem [alcohol abuse] have been given from a social, economic, or educational standpoint.

"We shall suggest one which rests solely on the prayers of supplication and sacrifice addressed to the all-powerful and compassionate Heart of Jesus . . . if the cry of the Irish nation - a long, piercing, persevering cry, if that cry be sustained by heroic sacrifice. To this end we have proposed the `Heroic Offering'."

Father Cullen died the day the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, December 6th, 1921.

Father Bernard McGuckian SJ is central director of the Pioneer Association.