Standún's Station 5 June1996
5 June 1996
By Fr Padraig Standún
A CURATE'S DUCK EGGS
- the bluer the better
The phrase "like a curate's egg, hard in spots" has taken its place in the English language, and I have heard it used in the Mother of Parliament's itself.
As a curate of long standing and likely to remain so, I find the phrase particularly fascinating. A Parish Priest's egg is of course an egg of a different colour altogether. They tend to keep their nestegg close to their chests and in different baskets at the same time, if you get my meaning among the mixed metaphors.
I once heard of a mischievous curate, himself now a PP who spread the word that the new Parish Priest in the area was particularly partial to duck eggs, the bluer the better.
Nothing pleased him more at a Station breakfast, it was reported, than a pair of duck eggs staring him in the face as he reached for the cube sugar, or siúcra an tsagairt as its called in the Gaeltacht.
The truth of the matter was and is that the said Parish Priest, unlike myself, has a loathing, a disgust, a hate for duck eggs, but being a gentleman as well as a scholar, he grinned and bared (his teeth) while swallowing what for him was a hateful yolk.
I mention all this in the hope that as you prepare for the Stations you won't necessarily believe all you hear about the culinary tastes for the clergy.
Most of us are happy to take the biscuit as recommended to avoid expense of competition, but people tend to be far more generous than that.
Station breakfasts in an earlier curacy of mine often began with a glass of "tús a' phota" the first run of poitín, as proudly presented as a glass of family wine in a French or Californian winery. As the saying goes put that in your duck eggshell and drink it.
The Station had a bad name for drinking and carousing in the last century, so much so that some senior clergymen made valiant efforts to do away with them completely.
I have seen the text of a letter Paul, Cardinal Cullen then Archbishop of Dublin sent to Rome in which he claimed to have stamped out the Stations "in all of Leinster, except for a few recaltricant priests in Kildare."
The Cardinal complained in particular about abuses in the Archdiocese of Tuam, of people having their sins forgiven in the morning and as many more committed by nightfall, due to drunkenness and dancing, saying "the clergy were worse than the laity". The same Dr Cullen used every opportunity he could to badmouth the clergy in the West. McHale and the west for the most part supported and preserved the Stations and the day came when the Second Vatican Council came out strongly in support of neighbourhood and house Masses just like the Stations we have had all along.
Rome has views on many things but as far as I'm aware it hasn't yet pronounced on duck eggs so I hope my regular supply of free range lake side duck eggs long continues.
Thanks, Jimmy. Nár laga Dia thú.
Connaught Telegraph - News - June 1996
Connaught Telegraph - Sport - June 1996
