Sir, – Further to "Deenihan 'enthusiastic' over Star Wars shoot on Skellig Michael" (August 31st), I am an American of Irish descent who has been living off and on in Ireland since I was 19. I'm now 75 and still love my homeland. I've seen the many changes Ireland has gone through over the decades, especially the shift from being a model Catholic country to enjoying its secularity. In many ways this shift has been a grace to Ireland.
But there is a difference between secularism and secularity. The former is an extreme and a reaction. We can be fully secular and still appreciate the spiritual. Beneath all the pomp of formal religion, Ireland has remained to the world a spiritual centre and a source of hope in frighteningly materialistic times.
The recent Government defence of allowing Disney Lucasfilms to shoot movie scenes on Skellig Michael dismisses the spiritual factor. But this element, cleared of any excess, lies at the heart of what Ireland is. Most of its social ills are due to a loss of its deep spiritual heritage and character. A few years ago we had to speak up for Tara, and now the Skelligs off Kerry. Ireland’s spirituality, to some extent hidden beneath its political success, is important to the world.
In the United States we have a similar blindness with regard to sacred sites of Native Americans.
Modern people don’t understand how the sacred can be violated and lost or what that loss means in terms of their own identity, community and personal depth.
The issue is not whether the film company will leave the island intact, although that is obviously important, but whether it should be there in the first place.
Should Star Wars be filmed in the Vatican? If not, then it certainly has no business offending the holiness of Ireland’s spiritual landmarks. – Yours, etc,
THOMAS MOORE,
Jaffrey,
New Hampshire.