Brexit for breakfast, dinner and tea

Brendan O’Regan is left ‘as shocked as anyone’ in the wake of the surprise victory of the Leave Campaign

Well, two shockers dominating the media in one week! First off there was that Irish victory over Italy in the European Cup and then the ‘Brexit’ vote which will see the UK leaving the EU.

The Ireland-Italy match was nerve wracking enough throughout, but the high tension of the last five minutes was especially bad for the heart. Last Sunday’s match against France was one of the most hyped in years – first time ever at this stage in the competition, a chance for revenge (very unchristian I know) after the infamous Thierry Henry handball. Sadly there was no third shocker.

If ever the cliché ‘uncharted waters’ applied it was in relation to the Brexit vote. When I tuned in to the BBC News shortly after midnight last Thursday I wasn’t too surprised to see that with the early votes counted the ‘Remain’ side was hugely ahead, with leading ‘Leave’ campaigner Nigel Farage appearing to concede that defeat was likely. 

Then I realised that the first count in was from Gibraltar, hardly representative. As other votes came in it was a closer call and I thought the huge populations in the larger cities would swing it towards a Remain victory. 

That’s the way I left it at 2am, and so I was as shocked as anyone to wake up the next morning to a fairly narrow Leave victory.

On the Friday normal radio and TV schedules were thrown out and it was Brexit for breakfast, dinner and tea. If there was anything else of significance going on in the world, I didn’t hear a thing about it. 

I thought Jonathan Healy put it well at the start of his Lunchtime show on Newstalk on the Friday: “In the last 12 hours the Leave side conceded defeat, then they withdrew the concession… Britain voted to leave the European Union, David Cameron announced he was resigning as Prime Minister, markets around the world plummeted, Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland wanted another referendum on independence… Sinn Féin said they wanted a referendum regarding Northern Ireland…  there was a motion of no confidence tabled on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the British Labour Party  and… it is only lunchtime!” 

Over the weekend and into early this week Brexit dominated every current affairs show I heard, and the dominoes are still falling.

Something different

And now for something completely different – the website iCatholic.ie has to be one of the Irish Church’s best kept secrets. Apart from being a very effective web portal for a vast range of video content of interest to Irish Catholics, it produces its own online TV chat shows and is well worth a look.

Their series A Question of Faith is a weekly programme presented by Wendy Grace and the edition for Wednesday of last week featured Pamela McLoughlin who spoke enthusiastically about her work with Veritas publications. 

She highlighted topical books on the Year of Mercy and spoke about popular publications like those on mindfulness and the writings of Pope Francis. Over 35,000 copies of The Joy of the Gospel had already been sold, along with over 5,000 copies of the recent Joy of Love. 

That episode also featured an engaging interview with a young woman, Eimear Felle, who shared aspects of her faith journey – she had grown up as a practising Catholic but was drifting along somewhat until a trip to Word Youth Day in Cologne in 2005 made her a “new woman”. In particular she told of a very special experience there of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Also worth looking back on, Tonight with Vincent Browne (TV3) Wednesday of last week had one of the most significant discussions yet on the abortion issue. Browne was thoroughly fair, asking tough questions of both Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign and Ruth Coppinger TD but it might be the first time in a long time that I’ve heard a pro-choice activist getting such robust questioning and Coppinger was really rattled, avoiding questions and being untypically hesitant. 

In a most telling exchange, Sherlock, using the language of the recent UN report, asked Coppinger if the treatment of abortion survivor Melissa Ohden wasn’t “cruel, inhumane and degrading”. Coppinger seemed most uncomfortable and resorted to the dismal ploy of saying she didn’t know if Ohden’s personal story was “manufactured”. Imagine the outrage if Sherlock had done something like that!

Pick of the week

Where God Weeps
EWTN, Sat, July 2, 8pm
Peter Sefton-Williams, Chief-Editor of The Religious Freedom Report published by Aid to the Church in Need, shares his experiences.

Everybody Loves Raymond
Channel 4, Fri, July 8, 7.55am
Touching and funny moments when Debra and the family try to get Ray to go back to church. 

FILM: Of Gods and Men
BBC 2, Friday (night), July 8, 12.35am
(2010) A group of monks is stationed with an Algerian community. Terrorists are making their lives increasingly difficult, and they must decide if they want to stay or leave.