Roisin, my niece, was intent on revenge. Then four years old, she had just endured an unmerciful teasing from her cousin, my nephew Sean. It was Christmas, and she went with my mother to the church at home in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, to see the crib there.
That done, they were coming down a side-aisle past a particularly vivid pieta, with the sorrowful Mary holding a dead Jesus, blood streaming from his side, hands and feet. Roisin took one look at it, turned to my mother, and announced with glee "Granny, Seaneen did that!"
Whatever else my nephew might have done, he certainly had nothing to do with the crucifixion of Jesus. I was reminded of all that by a picture on page 31 of Shrines. It is a picture of a pieta-style crucifixion shrine at Slea Head in Co Cork.
There is something charming and touching about the shrines of Ireland. They suggest a certain innocence and hope, but above all they are physical witness to the pain which they were erected to relieve, or to the gratitude for such relief.
In this slim book, photographer Liam Blake captures the folksy, the kitsch and the sublime in beautiful black and white pictures that are very much in tune with the mood suggested by so many of the shrines themselves. That certain melancholy earnestness, at once sad and uplifting.
Many of the shrines, built around holy wells, go back to pre-Christian times and carry with them a hint of the superstition of other days. A wise Christianity integrated them into its belief system, making it truly more Irish than the Irish themselves. Local gods became local saints, losing none of their fine powers in the process and still speaking to us all these millennia later. They are a spiritual treasure.
Patsy McGarry is The Irish Times Religious Affairs Correspondent and editor of Christianity: Articles from The Irish Times Series published last week by Veritas
