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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (16506)	5/26/1998 10:51:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

Ann, my husband is a Catholic from Northern Ireland. We are hoping to move there, but to the south. He wants to go home, and even though there are still problems there with issues like domestic violence, the fact that their young are highly educated, there is a booming economy, and they are bound by law to adopt the supportive, compassionate social policy of the EU are all very hopeful signs for the future. I have not been there, but feel Irish in some way that is hard to explain. I do read the Irish Times every day online. I spend a LOT of time reminding my child what a healthy family is like, though, and what is important in a boyfriend, so that she will not end up in an old-style Irish family like the one my husband came from. Wife beating and child beating are still somewhat common there, and it will take public health education to deal with these problems. It is really hard to change behavior if that's what you grew up with!! Breaking the cycle of abuse is very important, but only takes one generation. Children who have not been beaten, or seen their mother beaten, will not do that in their own families. The Celtic women were very tough!! Fierce warriors and everything. They were allowed to own property in their own right, and shared their husband's property equally. As I understand it, even today Irish women are entitled to only a third of their husband's wealth, so you can see it is very different under the influence of Catholicism. Of course, there was no divorce at all until very recently. They are in the middle of legalizing it, are they not, but with many restrictions and a long waiting period? During the Celtic times, women were free to divorce by leaving their husbands on February first of each year. Not that divorce is great, but my point is that marriages do fail, and the Celts had a more egalitarian society than in Ireland after Catholicism. Of course, a lot of the child beatings took place in Catholic schools. My husband was literally tortured, and permanently damaged emotionally from this kind of treatment. It is technically illegal now, but many of the parents in very rural areas are still intimidated by the church. Yes, I surmised you were Irish, Ann. Obviously you were from a healthy, forward-thinking family. I can tell even from my exposure to the Irish community in San Francisco, which is huge, that those hundreds of years when they were held down by the English and the church have not been good for them. There is a lot of anger and resentment. Far too many of the women smoke, and there is a lot of alcoholism and mental illness. But I think things are changing very, very rapidly. This time period is like a renaissance for Ireland, and it is very exciting!