’The Brits had the Queen. We had the Pope’

A million people gathered in Dublin in 1979 for the first ever papal visit to Ireland. Humanist celebrant and former student for the Catholic priesthood Joe Armstrong reads two episodes from his acclaimed memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe.

In Episode 9, he offers his perspective on Ireland’s then best-known clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey and Father Michael Cleary, both of whom had clandestine relationships and fathered children, causing scandal to what was then innocent Catholic Ireland. He also reads Episode 29 on celibacy, loneliness and desire in the seminary. ‘I was experiencing my loneliness. My desire for intimacy was heightened. I craved an emotionally interdependent, physically expressive relationship.’

Interviewed by Eamon Murphy at the book launch, hosted by the Humanist Association of Ireland, the author also reads one of the several humorous moments in the book.