In search of a former friend

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane 

I have once or twice mentioned my friend Jack in this column. He is a beggar man with a long grey beard who, up to some months ago, sat in the porch of a Dublin church. We had a falling out over a pair of shoes and he disappeared. In early spring I discovered he had moved to Dublin’s north inner city.

Deirdre is a young talented woman, just finished her doctoral studies at Trinity College and now working in the UK. She too knows Jack.

She is a dedicated environmentalist, who is critical of how we in the developed world squander our resources. She gave a short talk at the World Meeting of Families at the RDS.

Her enthusiasm for making our world a better place for all of us, her concern for and interest in Jack’s welfare is inspiring. She is genuinely interested in people who have hit on hard times and goes that extra proverbial mile to do what she can to make life that little bit easier for them.

There’s so much about her church, the Catholic Church, that she finds difficult to understand. She, like many, is angry and more than upset about all the cover-ups, how women are treated in her church, the absence of any real and meaningful dialogue or conversation, and how clerics make all the decisions.

We met up when she was in Dublin and she expressed a wish to meet Jack.

We arranged to meet on the Saturday before Deirdre returned to the UK. It was September 1 and the sun was blazing in the heavens as Deirdre’s train arrived at Connolly Station.

Thirty minutes earlier I had done a reconnaissance in the neighbourhood of Connolly Station. I cycled around Amiens Street, Sean McDermott Street and Seville Place but no sign of Jack. A young woman, who was begging on Amiens Street, told me that she often sees Jack but not today. 

Close to Sean McDermott Street I stop a young man, describe Jack to him. He immediately knows who I am talking about and replies: ‘that’s Jack the Pin, and he’s up the road’. Bingo. I have located him, delighted with myself.  No point in my going up to him because he will only roar and scream at me. I head back to the station, meet Deirdre, delighted with myself, and tell her that I have located Jack. 

We make our way to where I spotted him but he’s gone. We spend the best part of an hour walking around the area looking for him, asking nearly every second person we see if they know ‘Jack the Pin’ and if so, might they know where we could find him.

Right in the heart of Dublin everyone we ask knows who Jack the Pin is. At one stage I head up Talbot Street, stop an elderly woman, asking her if she knows Jack the Pin. It suddenly dawns on me my behaviour was getting very odd, stopping strangers on a busy city centre street, asking them if they know someone. Guess what, that woman directs me to a nearby coffee shop. But alas, no sign of Jack.

We never did find him. Deirdre headed for her bus and I cycled home.

That a young woman of Deirdre’s quality has trouble remaining a member of the Catholic Church surely has to be a serious warning and admonition to the management class of the Roman Catholic Church. 

But she is hanging in and that gives me hope.