Losing Faith in the Sister Isle.

What does a Dubliner, long resident in Berlin, make of his native Ireland's growing estrangement from the Roman Catholic Church? As Scally neatly puts it, the Church had moulded Ireland in the manner of his "learning" the piano as a child: 'taught to follow the notes and never to enjoy the underlying harmony' (p257). Scally is a fine wordsmith who makes complex issues approachable and clearly enjoys his trade: St Patrick, for instance is claimed by a broad range of competing socio-political perspectives ("Ireland's longest-serving political prisoner", p42), and was no rule-oriented theocrat but a "freelance preacher" ("an early Blues Brother", p43). [Extracted from the article]