When first coming to Ireland more than a half century ago, I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. Naturally, I was fascinated to land in a society that was impregnated with Catholicism.
While Catholicism was not the officially established religion, Irish society was overwhelmingly Catholic. The Angelus was played on the public radio; priests, brothers, and nuns wore their distinctive habits in public places; passengers in buses would invariably bless themselves when the bus was passing a church; and Masses, and other church services, were usually very crowded. Days of obligation had almost the aura of public holidays as many businesses and schools were closed.
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