Reading John McGahern in light of the Murphy Report

Peter Guy

Issue 393, vol.99, Spring 2010

And while the Murphy Report does not investigate child sexual abuse in the broader society, McGahern recounts how his own father was ambiguously sexual with him as a boy. Nor do the novels ‘cover up’ the cover-ups : when a family member discovers that his sister has been sexually assaulted by an adult to whom she was entrusted, his action in not confronting the perpetrator wins approbation. All in all the message is : there are offenders in all walks of life – and always have been.

Some readers of sociological reports might say that the further back one delves into the 20^th century, the more obvious is the absolute control exercised by the priests over the people. But what McGahern tells us is that the people had their own hold over the priests. He gives us to understand that a bargain of sorts was struck between most priests and the middle class, each side serving its own purpose. Observes a priest in one of the novels : “A priest who ministers to the bourgeoisie, becomes a builder of churches, bigger and more comfortable churches, and schools than a preacher of the Word of God. The Society influences the Word far more than the Word influences the society”. The church offered status to people in a class-conscious society.

The church too offered opportunities for social gatherings. Some of the religiosity was a veneer, even hypocritical. But we should not swing to the extreme of saying that, for the clergy, this all amounted to an empty ‘bargain’. The utter irrevocability of death loomed larger then in people’s daily lives. They looked for something tangible which related to this mystery; and the eventuality of hell and damnation became acceptable in such a context. Deep down McGahern would seem to have been in sympathy with the true role and value of the church – And he might even have said : The church means more than the people who run it, and has always done; it exists for ordinary people to interpret as they wish, and to follow, because of what it offers; it offers a sense of community and a sense of the spiritual – or the sense of belonging to some greater scheme than the vagaries of a secular existence.

Peter Guy recently completed a doctorate, on the modern Irish novel, at the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies, Institute of Technology, Tallaght.