RITE AND REASON: A new book has pastoral and historical insights of exceptional interest, writes Brendan Ó Cathaoir.
Éamonn Gaynor was a priest ahead of his time. As a pastor in Shannon in the 1960s, he tried to realise the vision of Vatican II. Moved to the quiet parish of Quin, he found most of his work there could be done more effectively by lay people. He volunteered as a chaplain to the Travellers - hoping to serve them as he had lived among Irish navvies in English work camps.
His bishop - not the present incumbent of Killaloe - declined his offer. After that he went, literally, to the dogs. As he had not been ordained to rear greyhounds, Gaynor, a founder member of the Furrow journal, resigned from the active ministry in 1977.
He has now produced a book comprising three memoirs.* His own story is of topical interest, if only for his chaplaincy among navvies during the 1950s. The second memoir - by his father, Seán Gaynor, an IRA brigadier during the War of Independence and Civil War - is of considerable interest but could have done with a judicious edit.
The third narrative - by Éamonn's uncle, Father Pat Gaynor - advances historical truth. Although exaggerating the significance of some events, he observed the contemporary scene with acuity. As an idealistic young priest he was a member of the Sinn Féin supreme executive in 1917-22.
He provides frank portraits of the national leaders; a gold mine for local studies in west Clare and north Tipperary; and a profound reflection on the Irish revolution. Taking opposite sides in the Treaty split, Pat and Seán Gaynor, who were step-brothers, remained firm friends.
Éamonn Gaynor writes with humour, candour and the absence of bitterness. Like his uncle, he had little time for churchmen who put power before religion. He recalls being banished to a London parish by a vindictive Clare canon. There he fell in love with an Irish actress.
They agreed to part, however, as he did not wish to compromise the young woman's prospect of happiness. (Catholic priests did not leave to marry in the 1950s.) This selfless decision is redolent of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk.
The highlight of Gaynor's life as a priest was forming a parish in the new town beside Shannon Airport, in "the Spirit of Christ and the second Vatican Council". He set about establishing a vibrant parish council, introducing the vernacular liturgy, and breaking the old sectarian moulds (at a time when Shannon had an unusually large Protestant population). But right-wing Catholic activists frustrated his work.
He learned that, when dealing with dissidents such as himself, the church behaved like institutions of every hue: expediency superseded morality.
Pat Gaynor was ordained in Maynooth in 1911 as a priest "consecrated to the service of the Irish people"; in retrospect he considered it a "defect that I put their temporal welfare - the breaking of their chains - before their spiritual welfare in those years: not that I made any clear distinction between the temporal and spiritual, for in my eyes the one served the other. I believed that Ireland free would be Ireland splendid".
Three years in Glasgow broadened his genial mind. During the 1913 lock-out his sympathies lay with the Dublin workers. He was scathing of clergy who remained silent about "the sweaters' greed", but raised a clamour over children's faith when people in Britain opened their homes to them for the duration of the strike. He did not believe in preaching heaven to people with empty bellies.
Father Gaynor embraced the Sinn Féin of Arthur Griffith - whom he revered as a patriot without vanity - preferring passive resistance to physical force. While accepting that Pearse and Connolly sacrificed their lives for love of the downtrodden people, he favoured the strategy of Eoin MacNeill, who had envisaged the Irish Volunteers as a defence force.
He admired MacNeill for his moral courage in confronting the IRB military council in 1916. Moreover, "a general revolt would not have accomplished anything that was not accomplished by the revolt in Dublin on Easter Monday".
Father Gaynor sought to "dispel the illusion that the Sinn Féin recovery of the 26 Counties was achieved by the heroism of a few expert gunmen". He found "there was little glamour and - outside Dublin and Cork and the fighting counties - little heroism". His unsung heroes had never handled a gun, yet withstood ruthless repression in establishing a civil administration under the authority of Dáil Éireann.
As a Sinn Féiner who placed people before abstract concepts, he accepted the Treaty settlement as the best measure of freedom available. Furthermore, he believed Collins had no choice but to uphold the authority of the elected government, or else allow Rory O'Connor and Tom Barry "establish a military dictatorship". The new State had also to "put down [but not so brutally] robbers and cattle-thieves, who operated under the cloak of the anti-Treaty movement".
Though he regarded Mrs de Valera as "a lady of noble character", her husband "sometimes played to the extremist gallery . . ." Father Gaynor quoted the reaction of his step-mother - who had two sons fighting against the Treaty - to the shooting of Collins: "My God, what harm if it was de Valera." He concluded: "The chief results of the Civil War were the revival of the factionist spirit and decay of enthusiasm for the revival of Gaelic."
It is no exaggeration to say future historians of the Irish struggle will need to consult Pat Gaynor's narrative. He entrusted the manuscript to his nephew on condition it would not be published until at least 30 years after his death. It was deposited for another 30 years in the National Library. This important book is marred slightly by misspellings, e.g., Mount Melleray Abbey.
*Memoirs of a Tipperary Family: The Gaynors of Tyone, 1887-2000 (Geography Publications, €30) will be launched in the Clare County Library, Ennis, on Friday next, February 27th.
Brendan Ó Cathaoir is a historian and Irish Times journalist