It's funny how priorities have changed over the course of the past decade or so. Once upon a time, people with money would splash out on holidays in hot spots where they could pose and party and shop, and where they would be wined, dined and entertained to their hearts' content. Now, magazines such as Conde Nast's Traveller and Elle's travel supplement are vying with each other to locate the most remote, secluded, stress-free oases - places where people fork out a fortune for the regeneration of mind and spirit. Millions are intent on escaping the strains of everyday city life: that's why there's been such a huge increase in the number of spas, where the emphasis is on mind as well as body. And think of the countless products being pushed at us - from bath oils to homeopathic calming tablets to aromatherapy candles - that claim to provide relief from stress.
I am lucky. I have discovered a place not far from my home where I can take time out at the end of the day to wash away any negativity or stress that's been accumulated. It's slap-bang in the city centre. Although there is traffic barging past directly outside the door, once inside you cannot hear it. There is sublime music. There are flowers and candles. There are hand-embroidered cushions, and pillows of plush velvet. The floor is a mosaic of jewel-coloured tiles, and the soaring architecture of both the interior and the exterior must rank among the most beautiful in the world. It is a haven, a refuge, a sanctuary from real-life rattle and hum. For 40 minutes, you get to listen to sweet singing and resonant, reassuring chanting, and when you emerge into the fraught morass of road rage, gridlock and car horns outside, you realise you feel serene.
It's called St Patrick's Cathedral.
I have attended the Christmas Eve carol service in the cathedral a couple of times, along with hundreds of other Dubliners, but I had never thought to visit it on any other occasion until my child became a chorister there and started to sing evensong. I am not a religious person, so the first time my husband and I went along it was in a supportive capacity, the way we would go to the school concert, say, or to sports day. I confess I was totally unprepared for how moving I found the ritual, and surprised by how relevant to our lives it still is. At the height of tribunal revelations of crassness and hypocrisy and greed, I listened to prayers that sought to confer righteousness on our ministers, and a reading from St Paul's Letter to the Romans reiterating that no one is above the law. There was only one dismaying aspect to the occasion: the choristers and clergy outnumbered the congregation. Only 23 people attended.
One Monday morning not long after our first experience of evensong, a security company arrived at our house to install a new alarm system. There was drilling and the testing of alarms; we were stymied by red tape and had to get head office on the phone; then we became shuttlecocks in some kind of bureaucratic procedural racket. (You've been there. It goes something like this: "Ah . . . you'll have to get on to so-and-so about that. . . hold on, I'll just put you through to such-and-such." Jingle, jingle, jingle as the on-hold music kicks in. Then: "I'm afraid that's not my department. You could try this number . . .") It went on and on until I couldn't take any more, and decided to seek sanctuary. I grabbed my coat and left my husband to it. "Where are you going?" he asked as I raced out the door. "Matins," was the terse response.
Five minutes later, I was ensconced in a pew, listening to organ music and the pure, angelic voices of the world-famous St Patrick's Cathedral boys' choir. I sat there thinking how different things were to the days when I worked at RTE. The rush to get out of the house in time to drop my daughter to school, the frustration of being stuck in traffic if we were running late, the prospect of the day's slog ahead. Some mornings, I would listen to news on the car radio, but I found myself switching to music on cassette more and more frequently until I stopped listening to news programmes entirely, realising that a litany of horror stories was hardly the best way for me or my child to start the day.
Now, in St Patrick's, I was being sent messages of hope for the future and being encouraged to feel grateful for the good things in life. I was sitting in glorious surroundings being bombarded with uplifting thoughts, not stuck in gridlock subjecting myself to tales of misery. It had to be the ultimate escape, and not a half bad way to start the day. The service lasted about 20 minutes, and at its conclusion I turned to face the main body of the cathedral. I was the only person there.
On the way out I stopped to talk to the staff who run the souvenir shop. The decline in attendance apparently started about a decade ago. In the spring and summer, tourists come, but in the winter months there is seldom a single church-goer in that beautiful, historic place. How strange to think that, in this bright new millennium of the Celtic Tiger - in which so many stressed-out individuals are craving respite from snarling and being snarled at - no one thinks to take time out in a sanctuary. Not an overpriced, artificial, once-a-year sanctuary of beach cabins and cocktails, or a sanctuary staffed by professional pamperers bearing soothing oils and unguents, but the genuine article. Visitors of all denominations (even a heathen like me!) are welcome - it says so in the brochure.
I am fortunate because I live nearby and I'm self-employed, so I can take time out in the morning to do matins. But if you work in the city centre, why not bypass the evening rush-hour by strolling to St Patrick's and spending 40 minutes of quality time there before your commute? Treat yourself. It won't cost you a penny.
Evensong in St Patrick's Cathedral starts at 5.35 p.m. and finishes at 6.15 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Going Down by Kate Thompson is published by Bantam, £5.99 in UK