Chapter Seven: 'Patrick Duffy Priest Power'
As the congregation grew ever larger, the priest of Portlaw became even more powerful; far more powerful and influential than any previous priest had ever been in the town. The women found him a most sympathetic listener to their problems, but the men of the parish could never get him to sup a pint with them; him being a reported teetotaller. It was once rumoured by a drunken scarlet woman from a pub in Tralee, that once a month a handsome stranger dressed in black would come calling to their pub and drink, dance and make merry with the colleens there; someone that had the look of the Portlaw Priest according to a furtive photo someone took. The Tralee woman swore that if it wasn't the Portlaw priest, then it was 'his double!'
By the time that Father Patrick had been the parish priest in Portlaw for nine months, his authority in the community was ‘absolute’. If he wanted anything to be done, all he’d have to do was to 'let it be known' to any parishioner and it would be done. If he needed this or that and his parishioners learnt of his needs, within days he would be supplied. Whatever change he suggested would be acted on immediately. If you needed to see or speak with him outside the confessional box, he would insist on coming to you as he did not take too kindly to being disturbed in the presbytery.
It was joked by a few of the more daring young males that the reason the good father did not want disturbing at home ever was because of 'what he got up to there' whenever one of the nuns asked for a private confession. So much was imagined about Father Patrick Duffy, but never grew stronger than malicious rumour. And yet, the priest remained a private person and made sure that so little was ever truly known about him.
It was joked by a few of the more daring young males that the reason the good father did not want disturbing at home ever was because of 'what he got up to there' whenever one of the nuns asked for a private confession. So much was imagined about Father Patrick Duffy, but never grew stronger than malicious rumour. And yet, the priest remained a private person and made sure that so little was ever truly known about him.
When Father Duffy therefore introduced his 'calling card’ to the homes that he visited in the parish, every person passing that house would know he was there on some parish business and would never interrupt his visit, whatever the circumstances! It wouldn't have mattered if the bishop had made a surprise visit to the parish and had sent a parishioner to fetch the priest instantly. Rather than enter the house with the 'calling card' stood against the wall outside and interrupt, the parishioner would go back to the bishop and tell him that he couldn't find Father Duffy and might even suggest that he'd gone off to Waterford for the day. On one occasion, when 99-year-old Doc Witherspoon lay dying on his sick bed, even Doc had to hold his 'last breath' for 45 minutes before Father Duffy finally arrived to give the dying man the Last Sacrament!
Ever since Father Patrick had seen that tree growing inside an old abandoned car on the prairie in the USA, the priest had become fascinated with all manner of wood, especially wood that could be trained to twist and plait with the seamless symmetry of a snake. It was his love of wood however, that led to his obsession with walking sticks. Over the past few years, he’d built up a collection of three hundred walking sticks. He loved all manner of walking stick, but the one he preferred to use constantly, and which became the priest’s ‘calling card’ was his great grandfather’s old walking stick that Patrick Duffy Senior used to have before he passed it on to Patrick Duffy Junior. This walking stick was shaped like a shepherd’s crook and Patrick had a photograph of him being allowed to use it when he was aged 11 years and was playing the part of a shepherd in the school Christmas Play.
After six months back in Portlaw, Father Patrick had established a number of firm routines that all his parishioners quickly became aware of and built into their calendars of ‘musts’ or ‘must not dos’.The most important thing that they needed to recognise was the most often used walking sticks that the priest was accustomed to using from his collection of over 300.
There were two Masses every Sunday, the first at 9.30am and the second at 11.00 am. Anyone arriving for the 9.30 am Mass; even seconds after the congregation had made their first sign of the cross, would not be permitted entry to that service as the doors would be closed and locked. They would be sent away with instructions to attend the 11.00am service. And in the event that they couldn’t make that service, to avoid spending the time between now and their next confession in a state of mortal sin, they’d be earnestly encouraged to attend the 6.00pm evening service in Kilkenny; a mere 36 miles away.
Confessions would be held on a Saturday evening as that would be the day when those requiring the Sacrament of Reconciliation would most likely have more to confess. Having been paid their wages on a Friday night, most of the men would be out the door for a few pints no sooner than they got home from work and got washed and changed. It would then depend how many pints they’d drunk before arriving back home from the pub as to which sin they were more likely to commit and need to confess.
Those married man who’d only had a few pints and got back home before their wives went to bed at 11,00 pm might find themselves on ‘a promise’ whereas all the other late revelers would be on a hiding to nothing! Those who came back home blind drunk would often finish up arguing and fighting with their wives; and those who arrived back harmless, but legless at 2.00 am in the early morning would be left to sleep it off outdoors. Protection would sometimes be sought by the drunk with him sleeping in the middle of Farmer Kelly's flock of sheep.
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