Chai Brady
George Hook in conversation. 
The real meaning of Easter has disappeared into a cataclysmic, calorific extravagance of chocolate eggs, George Hook tells Chai Brady
In the ever-evolving landscape of Irish Catholicism, few voices articulate the generational shifts with the same candour as George Hook. A veteran broadcaster and commentator, Mr Hook’s reflections on faith, culture, and national identity are not something he is shy about sharing.
“I don’t give things up for Lent anymore,” Mr Hook admits. “But growing up, Lent was a big deal. It wasn’t just about giving up sweets – it was a real commitment. You felt like you were joining all these other Catholics who understood that Easter was huge. Someone once said, and I think it was St Paul, that 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.”
Reflections
But Mr Hook’s reflections on Easter aren’t just nostalgic. He laments how its significance has been overshadowed by consumerism. “Now it disappears into a cataclysmic, calorific extravagance of chocolate eggs. The real meaning gets lost.”
Turning 84 years old in May, the Ireland of Mr Hook’s childhood was one where faith was deeply woven into the fabric of everyday life. Catholic education was the cornerstone of moral instruction, and the Church played a guiding role in personal and public morality. That, he believes, is no longer the case.
“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 said. “I think that is a great pity.”
This, he insists, represents a broader cultural shift – a move away from the distinctiveness of Catholic education toward a more generalised approach.
Mr Hook, while no longer a regular Mass-goer, still considers his belief in God essential, saying “I believe passionately and intrinsically in an afterlife, and I believe in God.”
My father brought me to Hyde Park Corner in London and I saw all these people – communists, radicals, all sorts – voicing their opinions”
Along with his concern for the decline of Catholicism, he also has strong unease about what he sees as an erosion of certain fundamental values, including free speech. He recalls a seminal moment in his childhood with his father that occurred during a visit to relatives in England during the war, when he was aged eight.
“My father brought me to Hyde Park Corner in London and I saw all these people – communists, radicals, all sorts – voicing their opinions. My father told me that this is what free speech is, and this eight-year-old suddenly saw that free speech was one of the most important things we had. And then he said to me, if you have an opinion, hold to it. And now, in Ireland, I see that free speech is at risk,” Mr Hook said.
Parliament
He said that “never have we seen it more dramatically than in our own parliament. Democracy is the most prized thing on the planet and free speech is being destroyed in our parliament – if they can literally shut people up and shut them down by shouting louder – that’s really worrying, that worries me greatly. I have a huge regard for our political system and never more is it important”.
Mr Hook extends this concern to global events, particularly the resurgence of geopolitical tensions, saying: “We’re on the cusp of World War III. Without a doubt we have the most dangerous president in the history of America, who knows what is going to happen to our children and grandchildren. If free speech is prohibited, or destroyed, what happens to democracy?”
Asked if he is concerned about potential trade wars following President Donald Trump announcement of the US putting new trade tariffs on countries across the world – Mr Hook said he was not as concerned about that.
I would be far more concerned that we are now in a position not unlike 1938 and that worries me far more”
He said: “He [Mr Trump] is absolutely entitled to put tariffs on whatever he wants, like Eamon De Valera put tariffs on imports into Ireland…so as a kid you had buy second rate football boots from Drogheda because football boots could not come in from England because of his tariffs.
“The economic war between us and England is famous, so economic wars will continue. I would be far more concerned that we are now in a position not unlike 1938 and that worries me far more. When guys in Dáil Eireann starts going on about neutrality… I think it’s incredible that we seriously think that if Vladimir Putin invaded England, he would look at little old Ireland and say ‘I won’t bother with Ireland’. We’re now part of Europe and we have to cop on, Europe must defend itself and we are part of that, and to be bleating about bloody neutrality is horse manure.”
Christianity
Asked whether Christianity still has a place in modern Ireland, Mr Hook’s response is unequivocal: “No, it doesn’t.” But he doesn’t believe that’s the end of the story.
“The Presentation Brothers in the 1950s taught us that Christianity has always gone through cycles in history. Like the Reformation for arguments sake, where it looked as if things might change. That is what is happening now. I actually believe that what goes around will come around, and that while there is a threat posed to Christianity now in Ireland, and Catholicism in particular with its Church, priests, nuns and religious, I believe it will come back. I don’t know how it is going to come back, but it will come back,” he said, adding that he would “absolutely” like this to happen.
We don’t have a Catholic education anymore, we have the education of religion, we’re not teaching our children Catholicism”
For Mr Hook, the core principles of Catholicism – especially the Ten Commandments – remain essential to raising good citizens. “I teach my grandchildren about the Ten Commandments. If you’re bringing up a child and you say ‘it is a good idea to obey your father and your mother, not tell lies, it is a good idea not to kill somebody’, that’s a good way to live your life,” he said.
His frustration lies in what he sees as the dilution of Catholic teaching: “Because we don’t have a Catholic education anymore, we have the education of ‘religion, we’re not teaching our children Catholicism. Most of our schools are still Catholic, most of our junior schools are still under aegis of the Catholic Church, why are we not teaching Catholicism? Why are we teaching ‘religion’?
“We’re in danger of losing our language – you can go out to some psychiatrist, and he will give you a certificate which says you can’t learn Irish because you can learn German, French and Italian: it’s horse manure. If we turn around and turn around our great heritage of our language, and then you couple with that our 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 adds there are more Welsh people speaking Welsh than there are Irish people speaking Irish.
Convictions
On contemporary moral issues Mr Hook remains firm in his convictions, adding that “I am a product of my Faith and my age”. He opposed the legalisation of abortion in 2018 and views the growing push for euthanasia with trepidation.
“I voted against the abortion referendum. That’s where I stand. As for euthanasia, that’s a difficult one. I don’t know how I would react if somebody said to me ‘you are now going to be a burden on your family for the next number of years’ but if you go to Zurich they will sort you out that is a very difficult one.”
If I have, God forbid, some disease and I think I’m going nowhere, and if I could get an injection which is going to end it all, I would be tempted”
Mr Hook explained that to understand him, having met his mother would have helped. “My mother convinced me that not only did de Valera plan Béal na mBláth [the ambush of Michael Collins during the Irish Civil War in Cork in 1922] he actually pulled the bloody trigger that killed Michael Collins. She also said to me she did not want to be a burden on the family. So that we wouldn’t have to pay for her funeral she deeded her body to a university so there wouldn’t be any funeral costs. I’m a bit like that.”
Mr Hook is no stranger to despair. He recalls a moment in his own life when he went to the end of Dún Laoghaire pier, took his clothes off an was about to jump in to take his own life. “I still don’t know why I put my clothes back on but I certainly intended to jump in,” he said.
“There’s a difference I think between suicide [and assisted suicide], people who die by suicide very often… it’s depression and everything else. If I have, God forbid, some disease and I think I’m going nowhere, and if I could get an injection which is going to end it all, I would be tempted. Thanks be to God I’m not tempted because I am not at that point, but I can’t answer that question.”
Hopes
As Ireland faces economic and cultural challenges, Mr Hook believes the nation is at a crossroads and that each generation has had to fight its own battles.
“For my parents’ generation, it was unemployment and emigration, 100,000 people a year leaving this country. The population went down to something like two and a half million. I am not sure what battles this generation is going to fight. But one thing is certain, literally as we speak today, Ireland is at its most difficult economic period in 50 years, there’s no doubt about this,” he said.
“We could be back to the 1960s in short order – we have no idea what could happen. Unemployment could be a word we use again. We have looked at migration for 30 years, we’ve looked at people coming to this country, we could be back to the point of emigration. I think it is a terrifying scenario. I am scared out of my wits, not for myself, it does not affect me. I am scared out of my wits for what it means for my children and grandchildren.”
On immigration, Mr Hook is pragmatic, saying: “Poor people have always moved to where there is a better future. The Irish did it for generations. Now people are coming here. It’s not going to stop unless we stop being a rich country. And we are very rich at the moment and therefore they come here.
I look at my pension and it is only heading one direction, downwards”
“What will change is if we become poor pretty pronto. Then nobody is going to come here and we’re not going to have any money to spend on putting people in hotels and Pascal Donohoe knows that, he’s wetting himself in his office because he has no idea what is likely to happen. 60,000 houses a year out the window if the economy takes a dive – we do not know. This is a scary a time as I have ever been in.”
He adds that for those with a self-funded pension that is invested in shares, he says “I look at my pension and it is only heading one direction, downwards”.
George Hook is a man unafraid to speak his mind, whether on faith, politics, or culture. His concerns reflect those of many who has watched Ireland transform in recent decades. While he sees challenges ahead, he holds out hope that faith will find its way back into Irish life. With all these problems, he concludes that “we are in a very worrying situation”.
“It is also interesting, I think in terms of Catholicism, that when the s-h-1-t hits the fan, I think people will go back to traditional values – and therein lies the faith.”