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Will Ireland Soon Be Lamenting Her Children?

The gaelic word Caoineadh — which translates as “Lament” — is a tradition as old as time amongst the Irish people. My first exposure to the concept came from the great traditional Irish singer Iarla O’Lionaird, whom my friends somehow convinced to come back to the campus of Franciscan University of Steubenville after a performance at the Pittsburgh Irish Festival in the late 1990s. I could swear that the songs he sang for us that day aroused something in my ancestral memory — I’ve more Irish blood running through my veins than anything else — and I was absolutely delighted when I walked him to the Portiuncula adoration chapel and saw him enraptured there before the Eucharistic Lord I had the feeling he hadn’t come face to face with in a while.

One of the songs O’Lionaird is known best for singing is Caoineadh na dTrí Muire – The Three Mary’s Lament.

A translation of the song I found online goes like this:

Peter, Apostle
Did you see my fair love?
Alas alack and woe is me!
I saw him just now,
being crucified by the guard.
Alas alack and woe is me!

Who is he, that fine man
on the cross of the Passion?
Alas alack and woe is me!
Don’t you know your son,
Mother?
Alas alack and woe is me!

Is that the little son
who was fed at Mary’s breast?
Alas alack and woe is me!
Is that the little son
who was born in the stable?
Alas alack and woe is me!

Is that the little son
whom I carried for three seasons?
Alas alack and woe is me!
Dear little son
your mouth and nose are cut,
Alas alack and woe is me!

They put flat nails
through his feet and through he hands,
Alas alack and woe is me!
They put the spear
through his lovely breast.
Alas alack and woe is me!
Alas alack and woe is me!

Tomorrow could bring Mary’s lament home for Ireland, who will weep for her lost children. Tomorrow may well be a turning point for the once thoroughly Catholic nation and champion of life.

On Friday, May 25th, Ireland will have a national referendum on whether to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution. That Amendment, written in 1983, reads:

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.

According to a press release from the Catholic Action League (CAL), a “corrupt Irish court, ignoring the common law tradition of the country’s jurisprudence, has already ruled that the only legal protection forpreborn children is found in the Eighth Amendment.” (Abortion has been criminally punishable by law in Ireland since 1861.) The statement from CAL continues:

This referendum will not only decide whether hundreds of thousands of innocent babies will be murdered in Erin in the decades to come, but will determine the character, civilization and destiny, spiritual and materiel, of that nation for generations. The salvation of souls, liberty of the Church, the freedom of faithful Catholics and the national, cultural and demographic survival of Ireland will be in jeopardy if this demonic aggression prevails.

All the forces of hell—the media, Hollywood, the UN, the EU, George Soros, the American multi-national corporations, the globalist elites, the socialist trade unions, and the establishment political parties—are arrayed against the heroes of Ireland’s pro-life movement in this battle for the soul of the nation.

Please pray the Rosary for Ireland, that the Holy Spirit may enlighten the voters of Ireland so they might have “a right judgment in all things, and ever rejoice in His holy comfort. Amen.”

Ireland — a nation which has such resonance for so many American Catholics with ancestral roots there — has been heading down a bad road for a long time. Ireland voted “overwhelmingly” to legalize same-sex “marriage” in 2015. As 1P5 contributor Brian Williams noted at the time:

Do not let this vote pass without serious reflection. The Church has been largely silent from the ambo for years. Catechesis regarding this subject so often veers between pathetic to non-existent to even complicitous.

Our contemporary culture, not just in Ireland but all of western society, has no understanding of what marriage means anymore. Now it is just legally “going steady” with whatever warm blooded mammal one wishes to identify as their soul mate, or possibly several soul mates if polygamy suits ones fancy.

For those claiming to be Christian: continue to cohabitate, continue to contracept, continue to divorce, and continue to abort. The collapse of marriage and the family have created a void which has been filled by the marriage “equality” movement.

For those claiming to be Christian who celebrate today’s vote in Ireland: continue to make up the meaning of marriage as you go along; if you bother to define it at all. But by all means, celebrate. Your destruction of marriage, at least in Ireland, is complete.

Those who profess to be Catholic have also failed miserably. We either do not understand our own faith, or we are unable to clearly and coherently explain the meaning and purpose of marriage.

When the historically Catholic Ireland, whose priests helped to spread Catholicism throughout Europe and the United States in centuries past, equates sodomy with marriage, our fire and brimstone alarms better be going off (see Genesis 19).

The Irish have sounded the alarm. It’s time to wake up. The question is, are you Lot or his wife?

It appears now that the next shoe may drop. Raise your prayers to heaven. May God save Ireland.

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