the unbearable lightness of rashers eggs and chips

 The May month flapping its glad green leaves like wings, as Thomas Hardy used to say.

Wandered into a cafe in Kildare town with my little dog.

A group of four men and a woman sitting in conversation.

I register them instinctively.

They are of middle years, hardy but not yobs.

The woman recognises my dog and calls to her by name.

She must have met me before.

The men set up a view halloo repeating the dog's name and clicking their tongues at her.

I'm wondering how long it will go on but it's all good natured and there is no sense of threat.

Presently they get tired of calling my dog and return to their discussion.

They are castigating the Catholic church.

I sit there quietly with a rueful expression on my face.

I'm here for a rasher, egg and chips, not for fiery public discourse.

My food arrives and I tuck in.

The woman is saying: "We all owe Gay Byrne a lot. Gay Byrne dragged the Catholic church out of the shadows."

She is talking about a now deceased RTE broadcaster, a peculiarly oleaginous man who presented an interminable low rent chat show for an infinite number of years.

"Bishop Casey had a mistress and was sending her money," continues the woman. "Gay Byrne exposed all that."

The group also reminisce happily about Father Michael Cleary who they claim fathered a child with his housekeeper.

I'm sitting there munching my provender but kind of fascinated by the adjacent chat because the science of discussion has always been of interest to me and I can't help wondering could I ever convince this group of anything.

The ghost of Aristotle appears at my shoulder and whispers: "The finest end of reason is to dispute well."

I always take this to mean that it is necessary to remain civil or we end up just shouting at each other.

"Okay Aristotle," I murmur, "but an equally fine end of reason is to identify the truth and stand for it."

Still I reminded myself that under no circumstances was I going to get into an argument in the cafe.

More as a spiritual exercise than anything else, ruminating through a mouthful of rasher, I began to consider how I might answer their various points if, heaven forbid, I was debating with them. I suppose I'd try answering the Bishop Casey thing just by saying: well, she was really good looking and damn the torpedos. Who among us wouldn't have an affair with that if she hove into view gibbering about gossamer wings and whatnot? And it looks like a setup. A bunch of Americans approach Bishop Casey and say 'Oh this poor stunningly beautiful girl is inconsolable after a relationship break up. She needs somewhere to heal.' And they move her into the house of the Bishop of Kerry. And Bishop Casey, the big countrified goose, thinks its Christmas. You know the Catholic church is a power brokerage. Countries and mafias and other actors routinely seek to subvert it. The Russians would do it for a project. Devil worshippers would do it for a larf. The possibility of a set up regarding Bishop Casey is not insignificant. As regards Father Cleary, I'd probably make much of the fact that those attacking him waited until he was dead. I'd point out that the psychiatrist Ivor Browne who said Father Cleary was his patient, broke his oath of confidentiality to reveal details of their supposedly confidential consultations. For some of us that would completely invalidate Ivor Browne's testimony. It would in a court of law. Moreover the supposed genetic match between the housekeeper's child and Father Cleary was obtained using methods more dubious than the oath breaking psychiatrist's oath breaking accusations. People wishing to vitiate Father Cleary's reputation had deceived an elderly senile relative of his into unknowingly giving a genetic sample from her own body to them. Why on earth would we trust such people? The laboratory claiming a match between the young man and Father Cleary was entirely unsupervised in its testing. And RTE the employers of the great Byrne were later convicted in the libel court in an unrelated case for paying an African teenager to claim another priest, Father Kevin Reynolds, fathered a child with her. Let's just say RTE has previous for framing Catholic priests any which way they can.

But even if, in my wildest dreams, I was going to challenge the people in the cafe, these lines of approach seemed a bit too punchy. I'd prefer some insight that would have a resonance which might actually reach them in the heart and not get me beaten up.

Hmmm.

I have no intention of saying anything to them anyway.

I'm walking out that door with a benign smile and nothing more.

I finished my meal, paid my bill and walked over to the group.

"Isn't it strange," I said smiling, "that for centuries people tried to draw the Irish people away from the Catholic church and they couldn't do it? And you guys left for Gay Byrne and RTE."

The woman and four men were silent.

"Just think," I said, "they shot us, they imprisoned us, they tortured us, they made it illegal to be a Catholic, they made it illegal for us to own land, and they still couldn't terrorise us into abandoning the ancient church. And you guys left for Gay Byrne and RTE and Independent Newspapers and the Irish Times and because Bishop Casey had a fling with a good looking woman."

One of the men looked up sharply.

"I know plenty of priests who had flings," he shot out.

"And I know plenty of priests who died for Ireland," I rapped back not recognising my own voice.

The little group hung their heads.

It was the darndest thing.

"God bless you all," I said and left.