This is not only the marching season. For many of us inclined to more peaceful pursuits, it is also the steaming season, because out of their winter hibernation have come those elephant reminders of poetry in motion cast iron and steel.
Add several tons of coal, several thousand gallons of water, oil the appropriate bearings, check the boiler pressure, and with grateful thanks to the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland the age of steam lives again through another summer.
The sight of 1913-built No.171 Slieve Gullion, resplendent in Great Northern skye blue and scarlet, blasting its way up Bray Head enroute to Enniscorthy with the packed "Strawberry Fair" special not only brought a lump to the throat but a reminder that, to steam locomotives are nothing less than images of God.
The driver eased open the regulator as Slieve Gullion barely came to a stand at Bray. The former 4-4-0 Belfast-Dublin express engine poured dense clouds of smoke and steam form its chimney, got a grip of its long train, and in a marvellous controlled display of apparently limitless power moved confidently away up the steep gradient, swaying in harmony to a staccato yet mallow exhaust beat.
An image of God? Yes indeed-not just because of the power, and the glory of the smoke and steam darkening momentarily the morning sky, but because of the regulated control.
It is the sheer power of God, nonetheless, which is closely connected with come of our most basic religious experiences.
Packer says the intimidatingness of God calls forth the most elementary of all our religious attitudes, the fear of God.
It was under this perception of God's overwhelming power that Isaiah cried out "Woe to me! I am ruined!" (Isaiah 6:5) and the psalmist spoke of men being swept away by terror of God (Psalm 73:19) and the possibility of being broken in pieces like a potter's vessel (Psalm 2:9).
For the Christian believer, though, the element of control is expressed throughout the Bible in terms of God's power being available for our comfort. When we ask where our help comes from, we're told our safety comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth (Psalm 121:2). Because He never faints or becomes weary, we can, in Isaiah's vivid imagery. "mount up on wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31).
In the New Testament, the power of God ensures that no one can snatch the believer from the Father's hand; nor can anything in heaven, earth, or under the earth separate us from Christ's love (John 10:29, Romans 8:39). Against hope we may believe in hope because God is well able to perform what he has promised (Romans 4:21).
The Christian is able to endure with contentment things that would ordinarily lay people low and even fill them with bitterness and resentment because, as St.Paul discovered, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Letter to the Philippians 4:13).
Moreover, it is the power of the Holy Spirit, felt, as a mighty, rushing wind at Pentecost, that gives the church confidence to face its task of witness and service in the world.
So, grateful thanks to the RPSI for keeping Slieve Gullion and its shed-mates in such pristine condition. For some of us, anyway, these great engines will always have a spiritual aura around them as they bring to mind the power, majesty and glory of God.
Meanwhile, the most powerful Irish express loco of them all, No.800 Maeve, CIE's answer to the famous Royal Scot class of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, languishes silent and unloved in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.
It's worth a prayer that one or more of the nation's fabulously wealthy entrepreneurs will realise how to really put their names in the history books by underwriting the restoration of this visually awesome monster. May Maeve emerge to steam again, to relive those halcyon days of the steamhauled Dublin-Cork expresses!
G.F.