Mass communication

ROSITA BOLANDattends a Station Mass in Eileen O'Connor's Connemara home. Begun in Penal times, the tradition is still a major community event

THE UNCURTAINED windows of Eileen O’Connor’s house in Derryherbert, Tullycross, are dazzling rectangles of light. Every bulb in the house is ablaze. Her home is a signal shining in the blue-black night of Connemara in March; it declares that something is happening here tonight. If you were a stranger passing, you would pause as you drove by and wonder what was going on. If you were a neighbour, you would already be making your way to the house for 8pm.

O’Connor is holding a Station Mass in her home, continuing a rural-parish tradition that goes back generations. The tradition has links to the Penal Laws, which forbade the hearing of Mass and meant that Catholics had to find ways to conduct the ceremony in outdoor locations such as Mass rocks or at each other’s houses.

At a Station Mass, where the householders of a parish have volunteered to take it in turns to host the ceremony, kitchen or dining-room tables double as altars. In a parish where the tradition persists – and there are not many left – there are usually two ceremonies a year, one in spring and one in autumn, so each volunteer’s turn comes round less than once a decade.

This is the second time O’Connor has held the Mass at her home. The first occasion was in 1998, when she had just bought the house. “It was my mother’s 90th birthday,” she says. A Station Mass is usually held on a Friday in this area, but this time it is taking place on a Thursday. There were 10 siblings in O’Connor’s family, and this day has been chosen because it is the anniversary of their father Patrick’s death.

Forty-seven years ago O’Connor left Connemara for Boston. She returned frequently for holidays, and bought the Derryherbert house in 1998. After her retirement last year she came home for good. The house was renovated and tonight’s Station Mass is a combination of house-blessing, house-warming and a ritual statement that says “I am part of this community”.

“My husband died 14 years ago, and we didn’t have children. I came home because I wanted to be with my family,” O’Connor says simply. “I decided to have a Station because I wanted to celebrate my return. The notice goes into the church bulletin and all the neighbours know they’re automatically invited.”

The kitchen table is crammed with biscuit tins and foil-wrapped blocks of home-made fruitcake, gifts dropped off earlier in the day by people who aren’t able to make it tonight. There are flowers everywhere, with a neighbour’s home-grown pink camellias on the dining-room table that is tonight’s altar. Every surface is gleaming: part of the tradition is that the host house gets an exceptionally thorough spring clean, often involving repainting and redecorating. As 8pm approaches there are about 40 people of all generations gathered in the house, most of them near neighbours, some of them family members who have travelled for the occasion.

“The Stations survive because of people like Eileen,” says Fr Gerry Burns, who is the sole remaining parish priest of Ballinakill, and who will say tonight’s Mass. Twenty years ago there were three priests in this parish. “It’s about bringing people together. You never know these days what areas will keep the Stations. Unless people respond to it, it doesn’t happen.”

People crowd into the kitchen-dining room and perch on borrowed chairs. They squash up on the sofa. O’Connor sits on the hearth, flanked by children. And men of a certain age stand in the hall outside the room, deliberately half in and half out of proceedings. The temporary altar table is laid with a pristine white embroidered cloth that belonged to O’Connor’s mother.

The Mass is short, personal, simple and infused with warmth. “You’ll remember tonight,” Fr Burns declares, addressing the children present. “You may not remember anything I say, but you’ll remember things about this night for the rest of your life.”

There are prayers for O’Connor and for deceased members of the family, and a blessing for the house. O’Connor herself says a few heartfelt words, thanking her family, particularly her sister Anne, “for giving me a home to live in until I had my own”.

While Eamonn Gannon, O’Connor’s brother, is playing Boulavogue on the tin whistle before communion, Anne is in a flap in the utility room. The toffee cakes, lemon buns and pear-and-almond tarts that were supposed to be served up after Mass are discovered to be still in the freezer. “Solid!” Anne cries in horror, then claps a hand over her mouth.

“I hope there aren’t too many out there with dentures,” mutters neighbour Maggie Coyne, putting a toffee cake on top of the borrowed tea urn to try to speed up the thaw. The women look at the frozen cakes in dismay and suddenly, like children, break into a loud fit of giggling that carries out through the open door.

There is no need to worry about a lack of cake. Everywhere I look there is a cake. Neighbours have contributed enough cake to bring Marie Antoinette to mind.

There used to be a strong element of duty in holding a Station Mass. Unlike tonight, people often did not have a choice. Priests autocratically made it known when it was someone’s turn. Stations passed rigidly from neighbouring house to house, and the priest who came expected every household in the vicinity to be represented at the Mass. Given the post-Mass hospitality expected, holding Stations could be expensive for people in times when there was little extra money.

“People ended up going to big expense. They’d be doing up their houses, putting out the best of food, having a lot of drink,” says Fr Burns.

“It was totally contrary to what the Stations were meant to be about.”

Stations used to be held in the mornings, but sometime over the past 40 years they moved to the evening, perhaps due to the fact that less people were farming and more were working office hours. There are many at O’Connor’s house who remember morning Stations, when the priest would be served a hot cooked breakfast in a room by himself, the only person to receive hot food.

“And the dues,” recalls Paddy Gannon, O’Connor’s brother. “The priest would have a list of everyone at the Mass, and you’d have to give him your dues. Then he’d read out your names in front of everyone, and the amount you gave. Everyone knew exactly how much or how little money you had. It was terrible really.”

“The dues were originally for fodder for the priest’s horse, in penal times,” says Tom Flaherty. He laughs. “It didn’t matter that the horses were long gone; the collection continued.”

During tonight’s Mass, Fr Burns carries a bowl of water and salt to each person in the room to bless themselves. Why the salt? Nobody I ask seems to know. Flaherty suggests that it goes back to a time when the priest would bless a bucket of water in the host’s house, and neighbours would later take bottles of it home “and the salt meant the holy water wouldn’t freeze”.

“That water would get sprinkled on doors and windows when there was thunder and lightning,” says Paul Gannon, O’Connor’s nephew. “And on boats,” adds Flaherty. “And animals.”

There are three generations sitting alongside each other on the couch: Paddy Gannon, his son Paul and his grandson Luke. “This is what is special to me about Stations,” Paul says, gesturing to his son and father, and looking round the room. “The inter-generational aspect.”

Eamonn Kane, one of O’Connor’s brothers-in-law, who has travelled from Co Mayo, takes out his concertina and starts playing tunes. There’s singing, and the house is hopping. Willie Gannon, O’Connor’s brother, does a sean-nós dance, making the floorboards jump and hands applaud.

For O’Connor, the night is bitter-sweet because of the people who are not there, particularly her deceased husband, Jack. “It’s emotional,” she says. “The plan was that two of us would be sharing this house, and our retirement, together.” She states again how much she loves her newly renovated house. “I’m very happy everything turned out so well.”

She looks around her newly blessed Derryherbert home, full of neighbours, friends and family, the people who make up a true community, all gathered to celebrate a generations-old ritual. “I’ve come home,” she says softly. “I’m home.”

More of Brenda Fitzsimons’s photographs from the Station Mass can be viewed online at irishtimes.com/slideshows