March.2014
WEISFJORD NEWS
Saint Patrick For Ireland: Ibar For Wexford BY JOANNE CROFTON sk anyone what they know of St Patrick and the story of the Roman Welsh slave captured by Niall of the Nine Hostages will be told. It will feature the story of the shamrock and possibly the snakes. It will also be declared he was the first Christian to Ireland but how much of this is myth and legend and how much of it is true. We have ancient texts about St Patrick his own writing first his Confession and second a letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus and two biographies. I am not saying that I or any other historian or theologian wants to knock Patrick’s Day. It does not really matter who was the first as St Patrick has managed to get the patent and therefore the honour is his. Indeed it may be that we never discover the first person. Like the Viking raids there probably was not one individual who came rather as Christianity spread Westward teams of missionaries travelled long distances and then focused on a tribal leader or chieftain it is therefore possible that Saint Patrick by converting the High King of Ireland holds the honour. We know that Brigit wove a cross of rushes and preached to and converted her own chieftain. Once the chieftain converted Christianity would spread downwards and outwards. It is important when looking at ancient texts to realise that modern terms do not always equate Nowadays, we usually think of a "confession" as when a person acknowledges some guilt for wrongdoing. An older use has other meanings: Confession of sin. Confession of God's greatness ; Confession of Faith – as in the Creed, a profession of faith. The Confession of St Patrick is mostly the second usage: the telling of the greatness of God as Patrick has experienced it in his own life. The same is with his biographers which will not read as a modern biography the two are Bishop Tírechán and Muirchú and it is from them that we get most of the myths and stories that we know about our patron saint. Unlike the biographies of today these are more a collection of miracles and his preaching in genre very close to the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles in the Bible. Reading through pages and pages of miracles and how he almost single-handedly converted the entire population reads as a wonderful piece of propaganda. The two biographers are writing of a totally different man who penned his own work. St Patrick’s own words speak of his failings, his struggles and his limited successes. In fact St Patrick’s opening words to his Confession are “My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many.”
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There is also no mention in Patrick’s own manuscript as to where he tended his sheep. He never speaks of using the shamrock to explain the trinity and other places that are traditionally associated with him including the lighting of the fire on Tara do not come from his own lips. Tírechán and Muirchú have also very different stories about the saint. However the oldest manuscript we have in existence dates from 807 AD and is in the Book of Armagh in Trinity College. Which
means it was copied almost 400 years after the events and even these are uncertain although most agree that he arrived in Ireland in 432 and died in 461. However he was not the first Christian to set foot on Irish soil. Here is Muirchu’s account of the earlier mission ) They knew for certain that Palladius, archdeacon of Pope Celestine, the bishop of Rome, who was then occupying the apostolic see as the forty-fifth successor of St. Peter the apostle, had been consecrated and sent to this island in the cold north in order to convert it.(3) But he was prevented from doing so (by the fact that) nobody can receive anything from the earth unless it be given him from heaven. Neither were these wild and harsh men inclined to accept his teaching nor did he himself wish to spend a long time in a foreign country, but (decided to) return to him who had sent him. On his way back from here, having crossed the first sea and begun his journey by land, he ended his life in the territory of the Britons. So Muirchu claims that Palladius failed as he was not the chosen apostle by God so Ireland remained pagan until Patrick arrived. While we know little of Palladius and if his mission were successful or not what we do know is that there were Christians already in Ireland. The proof if anyone needs it is here in Wexford. If Saint Patrick is a difficult figure to understand how much more difficult is Saint Ibar or Iberius. First off who has heard of him? Perhaps one thinks of the
Church of Ireland on the Main Street when one hears the name and then forgets about it. Ibar came from County Down before Saint Patrick mission even began although we cannot be certain of the date as later Ibar’s biography or “Life” was re-written to come into line with St Patrick and Patrick simply dispatches Ibar down to Wexford. This is most likely a reworking of the Life but unlike Patrick we do not have Ibar’s own words The story of St Ibar is that this saint is largely unknown and unknowable with very little writing in existence, we cannot even be sure if there were extensive writings on him shortly after his death that are now lost. He is said to be one of the four bishops who preceeded Patrick to Ireland. Saint Ibar also Iberius, Ivor and Ibar mac Lugna is mentioned in the Life of Saint Abbán where he is mentioned as founding Beggery Monstary and serving as Spirtiual Director to St Brigid’s convent in Kildare. What we do know is Saint Ibar founded a monastery out on Begerin Island and as legend has it his prayers got rid of the rats off the island. The monastry was still there when the Vikings came, as there is historical data that they plundered it a few times before they settled in Wexford. According to Doctor Billy Colfer in his book “A Town and its Landscape” the aeral photograph of the Selskar area shows a circular enclosure showing the site is early Christian or even pre-Christian in date. Historians also agree that Trimmers Lane, a natural causeway, was used by Early Christians and probably linked the monastery of Begerin with the Christian settlement of Loch Garman. Later revision to the Life of Saint Abbán who was Ibar’s nephew claims that he was a disciple of Patrick’s. Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated around the world even the Great Pyramid in Gaza is flood lit green. It is not surprising that the Irish-Americans throw a huge parade. After all the Irish Diaspora were holding parades and marking the day as part of their identity long before the first Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was held in Ireland. So while we drown the shamrock and wear green and celebrate what it is to be Irish, remember then that here in Wexford there is another saint. This saint has nothing to do with snakes and shamrocks, and is not marked by parades. Saint Ibar the Patron Saint of Wexford whose feast day is the 23rd of April and who got here before Saint Patrick but did not have the biographers and spin doctors that Patrick acquired.
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Proud To Be A Public Servant BY JOE RYAN I’ve got to hold my hand up. I’ve worked in the public service for over 20 years at this stage. So did my father and his father before him. I’m from a family of teachers. It may sound a strange thing to confess in Ireland where the public service has a strong role in our community. Our gardaí, our teachers, our nurses are first to come to mind when you mention public services. But so too are our ESB who reconnected the power after the storms, County council workers that fill in the potholes, post workers that deliver your letters, social workers that we bring our problems to, I could go on. The public service in Ireland employs almost 300,000 workers. All of these workers provide the basis of what a community needs to make it tick. That’s not to say nobody in the private sector performs a valuable public role too; the local radio station, the sub post office owner, the local newspaper and the crèche operator all underpin the view that a community needs a blend of those in public and private sector to make it work. All provide a public service in their town and hinterland. You don’t have to be paid from the public purse to provide a public service; Wexford Bus is a good example of a private company without which the county’s transport infrastructure would be much poorer. But all is not well in the state funded public services. Numbers have been reduced, pension levies introduced and pay cut 3 times for some since 2008. In comparison to some in the private sector public sector workers have seen their incomes cut significantly, giving more and getting back less at the end of the day. I know that some people will say that they should be lucky to have a job and that all areas of public spending like social welfare has been cut. Unemployment has been unequal in how it impacted after 2008. Of all age groups, it is the young that are suffering most from
it. But none of the above will make public servants feel any way better. When the economy was booming 10 years ago, the bullishness of the private sector and all that it could deliver in terms of income was where the real achievers were supposed to go. Public service was for whimps. So to compete with the market for a limited pool of talent considered by management as valuable in the economic conditions, the conventional wisdom that prevailed at the time was that pay at the top of the public service took off to compete. Bonuses in semi state, benchmarking to break old p a y
erty manically chased one another a feeding frenzy of buying property while you could stretched many a person beyond their means. But there is one thing that I feel uncomfortable about, it’s the bonus culture. While people criticise benchmarking that went on in the public sector few raised any concerns about bonuses in the private sector and what they were being given for. Banks gave bonuses to
senior staff based on the size of the loan agreed between the employee and the customer. So different banks perversely competed with developer on how much they could close a deal for and how much the bank official handling the deal could get as a bonus, not on how likely the bank was to get a return on the loan. And then there was the company accounts which could come in handy when you had a daughter getting married especially if your name was Séan Quinn. Further down the corporate food chain there was the pick me up, where the company included in its costs the “networking” that was essential to expand any business. Punchestown and Galway became by-words for excesses where the champagne flowed well into the wee small hours. Few of those partying were public servants or ordinary workers either for that
matter. relativities and set new relationships between jobs as opposed to grades. To feed this pyramid at the top everyone was bench marked. All economic pyramids collapse eventually and this one was no different. When the music stopped the people left standing without a chair were not unsurprisingly the low paid public sector worker. The basis of all wage increases in the first decade of the century was the price of property and as wages and prop-
I’ve always believed that if someone works hard then pay them upfront, no frills and no nonsense. Why do we need a bonus culture or the notion that a “little something for yourself” will incentivise workers better? Perhaps if we could get back to that concept it might give some certainty to those who have an income as to what they could spend and as to what was beyond them. Most public servants would settle for that.
Do they expect us to pay to drink dirty water? W
ater being supplied to thousands of home across the entire southeast of Wexford is unfit to drink according to a local election candidate. Mick Roche said that water being supplied to homes from Whiterock hill in Wexford town to Kilmore Quay was often coloured and foul smelling and was responsible for the destruction of household appliances due to the build up of lime. The Sinn Féin rep has invited Minister Phil Hogan to come to his home in Bridgetown and try the water for himself before pushing a water tax on people who get their water from the Fardystown scheme. “Time and again, the drinking water being supplied to homes across South East Wexford from the Fardystown Water Scheme has been tested and declared perfectly safe for human consumption,” Mr Roche said, “But try telling yourself that when you’re handing your child a glass of foul smelling brown water or buying a new electric kettle because the other one has been rotted by the build up of lime.” “The Government expect people
living in the affected area from just outside Wexford town to Kilmore Quay, and from Forth Mountain to Rosslare to pay a water tax next year. It’s not bad enough that they are not willing to fix this problem because technically the water complies with all the standards, now they actually want to tax us for the dirty water that comes through our taps and destroys our kitchen and bathroom appliances.” “Families who have enquired about a solution to their water supply problems have been advised to buy a home filtering system or domestic water softeners, which could cost more than ?1000. Is it Minister Hogans intent to offer a rebate for homes that have purchased such devices or consider exempting those being supplied from the Fardystown supply from the water tax altogether?” “Minister Hogan famously said that you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs when asked to explain the squandering of ?85 million by Irish Water on consultant’s fees. If the Minister expects us to stand idly by while he puts a tax on
us for water that is not fit for rats yet alone humans, then he will have to adhere to his own mantra and break a few eggs. Come down to Bridgetown and have a glass of this putrid water and then we’ll have a talk about water charges, if you are still standing Minister.” The Sinn Féin candidate said that this had been a live issue for ten years and had consistently been pushed under the carpet whenever anyone went to the media with a glass of dirty water or proof of how many times they had to replace a shower system or dishwasher in the space of a few years due to the hard water. “Fine Gael and Labour have tried hard to make water an important issue so they can get another tax in but they won’t take action when thousands of families are being fed a grossly inadequate supply. Asking people to pay for this running slime without any attempt at rectifying the situation would be inflammatory.” By Wally O’Neill