Ireland is losing its Faith and language – George Hook

The veteran broadcaster George Hook has said the current approach to religious education is so general it risks undermining the country’s religious heritage, adding that it is a “great pity”.

“What upsets me greatly is they don’t teach Catholicism in schools anymore. They teach religion. My grandchildren know as much about Islam as they do about Catholicism,” Mr Hook told The Irish Catholic.

“Most of our schools are still Catholic, most of our junior schools are still under the aegis of the Catholic Church, why are we not teaching Catholicism? Why are we teaching ‘religion’?” he asked.

The retired 83-year-old commentator connected the decline in Catholic education to the erosion of national identity, saying that “we’re in danger of losing our language… and then you couple with that the great heritage of our Faith”.

“I talk to my grandchildren about the hedge schools, that when Catholics were disallowed their religion, they taught in the hedges with the Penal laws. We had Mass in the hillsides to carry on. We can’t lose that. If we lose that, we can throw our bloody hat at it. We are no longer Irish. And we cannot lose that,” he said.

He recalled being raised in an Ireland where Lent and Easter were central parts of the year, saying “without Easter, there would be no Christianity. It is the single most important feast in the calendar because of Jesus rising from the dead. Easter week was a big deal, Spy Wednesday and Holy Thursday and Good Friday and you have the stations of the cross. My problem is I talk to my grandchildren about this and I’m talking gibberish – they have no idea what I’m talking about”.

Although he acknowledges that Christianity does not hold the same place in society today, he said he believes it will return. “That is what is happening now. I actually believe that what goes around will come around… I don’t know how it is going to come back, but it will come back,” he said.