Happiness Is A Warm Nun

Don’t fence me out

t hardly needs to be said, but the Church has always been super-duper nice to Ireland and its people.

Just look around you. Happy, smiling people everywhere, fully-rounded and emotionally grounded, all thanks to the Church.

Indeed, have you ever met an Irish person with a bad word to say about a priest? Or, Elvis forbid, a nun?

And yet, everyone now and then, GG’S faith in the Church wobbles just a teeny-weeny bit. Like Father Murphy after finding a button on the collection plate.

One such wobble occurred exactly a year ago to the day, when we learnt that Luisne – that open-armed and all-embracing Kilcoole centre for dreamers, drummers, chanters and various other New Age chancers – was being put up for sale by its multi-millionaire landlords, The Sisters Of The Holy Faith.

With membership numbers dwindling, all over Ireland – and the rest of the world – religious organisations are having to sell off some of the family jewels to maintain their glitzy lifestyles. And that means all that glorious land and lush properties that were often gifted to these good Samaritans are suddenly going on the market.

It happened with Carraig Eden, and it has now happened to Luisne.

Hey, even God’s disciples have to balance the books. Prophets may be down, but that doesn’t mean profits have to follow. Besides, a big part of organised religion is centred around keeping up appearances, and all that gold doesn’t come cheap. Worth every donated penny, of course, even if The Vatican does look like it was designed by Liberace.

What we find hard to accept amidst all these simple twists of faith is how the two sisters who have given years of their lives to making Luisne the welcoming and much-loved centre that it is were left entirely out in the cold about the sale last year. When it came to the August, 2016 announcement by The Sisters Of The Holy Faith that they were putting the 18th century manor on the market, its two inhabitants, Sister Miriam and Sister Barbara, weren’t told. And once Luisne went on the market, there was no word from The Sisters Of The Holy Faith as to where the two would live once evicted from their home.

Now, one year later, with Luisne sold, and the grass growing wild, Sister Miriam and Sister Barbara still don’t know where they’ll be living once all the paperwork has been completed and the new owners reveal their plans.

The Holy Faith gang got upset when we expressed our reservations about their mysterious-verging-on-mercenary ways last year, and so, on advice from those fighting for Miriam and Barbara’s rights, we pulled the article, hoping for a happy ending. Now, that happy ending seems unlikely. So, the article’s back up.

There was news in May of this year about a local consortium who promised, should they be the successful bidder on the Luisne property, that the sisters would still have a home there [nestled inside a new housing estate, of course), but few are daring to hope that they are the ones currently signing the papers.

It’s been a long, dark road for Sister Miriam and Sister Barbara, and there’s still no sign of light. Here’s hoping the sun comes out for them soon…