Country Living with Francis Farragher

IT probably is still one of the main sacraments – my technical knowledge of the ‘ould religion’ leaves a lot to be desired – but as a child of the 1960s, making that first confession was a huge undertaking for any youngster ‘pushing on in years’ with their eighth birthday within striking distance.

The Sacrament of Penance has taken over from the ‘confession’ word and there is now a huge expectation of making the First Communion; a bit like Santa Clause arriving in early summer. Around the mid-60s though, the emphasis wasn’t on the First Communion, for that achievement would be a completely worthless exercise, if you had made a ‘hames’ of the First Confession . . . in other words if you had made, what was called at the time a ‘bad confession’.

The first week back at school for the ‘communion class’ after the Christmas holidays would scarcely have passed, before the Brother at the top table would start reminding us of the huge undertaking that lay in front of us that May. All the rules and regulations were outlined to us about preparations for the first confession.

A good knowledge of the whole ‘small catechism’ was a first requirement and even though the answer to question 1 – “Who made the world?” – was relatively straightforward, it got a lot more complex when it came to issues about three persons in the one God.

Every month or so, the PP from Corofin, a kindly old man (at our age, anyone 40 or over seemed to be ancient) by the name of Canon O’Malley, would come to examine us on our basic knowledge of the catechism and theology, and the teaching brother would fairly pep up, if we delivered the correct answers to the padre in record time. That though was the relatively simple part of the preparation process for the first confession.

All of us in the class seemed to be deeply troubled at our ability to examine our consciences, for a failure to do this with both accuracy and complete honesty, could rob us of most of the virtuous dividends to be gleaned from the sacrament . . . and then the whole exercise could be futile.

Sometimes, little playground meetings might be organised by those kids who came from more religious homes and one of the ‘leading holy lads’, who used to get five shillings for cleaning the local church, would go through the more common sins.

They had a familiar ring to them: cursing always seemed to top the list, followed by not doing what we were told at home, telling the odd lie here and there, and maybe the odd raid on a local orchard or two, when the apples were fit for picking in early autumn. Serious stuff!

Pictured: Confessions: We always knew that it was vital to start off by making ‘a good one’.