All Men

While I was driving my car, I was tuned to BBC Radio 4 and a simple and amusing, true life story was broadcast.
The story centred around Knock, Co. Mayo Southern Ireland and featured a very down to earth and amusing Priest.As a young Priest in the 1960's he was sent to the area that included Knock. He was very surprised, when he found so many men in their thirties and forties, mainly trying to make a living on farms, all on their own. He commented that they looked unkept and did not make personal hygiene, a priority and were often the worst for drink and when they did try to socialize, were the butt of jokes and were ridiculed.
The Priest decided to delve further into this peculiar trait and discovered, a tradition existed on these farms. As the farms were worked, very little money was generated and as the family grew,( mainly large families)only the eldest son, was encouraged to stay, all the other siblings, boys and girls were told to move out. In time the parents would die, leaving the eldest son to carry on the tradition and in the same name.The work was very hard and the toiling, took up most of the farmers time.A quick bite to eat in a delapidated and neglected home a few beers at the pub, home to bed and up at the crack of dawn, was the life the Priest found to be the norm.
The Visitation of Our Lady of Knock was explained and how this generated pilgrims to the area, which up to this point was a very rural setting.
The Priest was also concerned that because of the dwindling young population the congregation at Sunday Mass was also dwindling.
One evening he was reading a magazine in which was an article on Marriage Bureau's and it struck him then, to start one in the area, for all these bachelor farmers.As he and his fellow Priest's, because of their vocation and vows taken, had no experience of marriage, they got as much help as possible, from married couples in the area.He started sending out leaflets, in all the churches and sat back and waited. It was not long before he was snowed under with applications and forms already filled in with the required photo.


This generated so much interest, an office was set up near the Knock Shrine, where it can be found today, manned by the same lady over the last twenty five years.
Word soon spread both nationally and internationally and the Priest decided he would encourage people from other parts of Ireland such as Dublin to join the group,so from humble beginnings this has been a huge success.
One couple were interviewed in turn and told their story. The lady was thirty six years old and had a successful career in Dublin and as a non drinker found it hard to mix in pubs etc and was by nature, very shy and retiring, so she contacted the Knock office filled in the forms and waited. She was introduced to her husband to be and in a typical Irish way, wanted the traditional, tall, dark and handsome and found her husband to be very short, which she told in a very amusing way but found they didn't have much in common and the husband felt the same, so they went their separate ways and the husband tells the story, that he went back to the bureau and formed another relationship which did not work out.
During this time he was still in touch with this lady and they decided, to try again and have been happily married for fifteen years and have two children.So ends this gentle story of a humble Priest in a rural Parish who changed the live's of many in his congregation.