The Priest

The Bragar Priest

I remember a man who used to come home to Bragar every second summer when I was young. His father was, I think, my grand-uncle, had gone off to Newcastle to work, and had met and married an Irish woman. One of their sons became a RC priest, a Jesuit I think. But used to come back on holiday to his father’s ancestral village of Bragar where he stayed with two female first cousins (both devout Free Kirkers); who adored him and were very proud of his intellectual achievements (if less proud of his religious beliefs).

He used to tease them; saying to my father “You know, John, sometimes I go on holiday to a Roman Catholic retreat, where the nuns look after me exceeding well. But not as well as my beloved cousins”. And he would have a twinkle in his eye as he delivered this great double entendre.

I was also present one night when one of the cousins asked him why he had embraced the Roman Catholic Church. “Aye, that is a great mystery. Came as a great shock to my father. He never took me to church. But my mother took me to Mass every Sunday. And then my Dad was totally surprised as to why I embraced my mother’s religion, and decided to become a priest.”

Unsurprisingly, in the Bragar of the 1950s and 60s, a place then short of Jesuit priests (as I believe it may be to this day), he was simply known as “The Priest”.

My recollection of him was that he had a very pleasant personality; but, behind it, an intellect of steel. He was totally unphased by the locals gently trying to persuade him that he lived (as they would put it) in “grievous error”. Reminded me, even then, of what I had heard and read about the legendary Jesuit Father Martin D’Arcy. [Who, incidentally, once in the 1930s did a distinguished performance in the distinctly unfriendly environment of Stornoway Town Hall: probably one of these rare examples of the lion being thrown to the Christians.]