I haven’t said much about our new priest. He came to the area over a year ago and was introduced to us as Fr Leopold Barney Roche and is now known simply as “Fr Barney”. The poor man has to cover Killdicken, Honetyne, Glengooley and the mad hoors in Bally

He has created a bit of a stir since he came. The first thing to generate consternation was his decision to forego living in the PP’s house, an imposing Georgian pile beside the church. He lives in a flat over the Post Office, cycles a bike and wears sandals.

These latter details matter to some people. Lily Mac the postmistress thinks he’s a communist.

“Only communists and hippies wear sandals,” says she, “and what’s the idea of living in that hovel above this place? I wouldn’t let my cat live in it. The world is surely upside down.”

“What about Jesus?” I asked

“What about him?”

“Didn’t he wear sandals?”

“But that was the Middle East,” says she, “sandals are sensible footwear there. Anyone wearin’ sandals in this corner of the world is lookin’ for notice or chilblains or else is a communist.”

“So, Fr Barney is a communist?”

“He has all the signs of one,” says she, “maybe a dose of the chilblains will knock sense into him.”

In his own odd way, Fr Barney is making his mark. Once the initial shock of having a PP that lives in a flat, cycles a bike and wears sandals had worn off, people got used to him.

He has developed a reputation as a “holy man” and, I suppose, given his position and his calling, it’s not an altogether surprising development. A mighty man for praying, he utters incantations over everything – be it a sick child, a scoury calf, an impotent bull, a new tractor or a freshly tilled field. He has been known to stay up all night lambing ewes with farmers.

However, like many holy men, he is scatter-brained and eccentric and not always in tune with the ways of the world. For instance, he has a very loose relationship with the clock and the calendar and is known to turn up at the wrong time and the wrong day for weddings, baptisms and the odd funeral.

The locals have grown wise to his challenges in this department and organise transport for him to make sure he turns up for major events. But it isn’t easy to know where to find him.

He can take off for Knock, Lourdes, Rome or Medjugorge at the drop of a hat. Well not quite at the drop of a hat – he is a very popular man on the pilgrimage circuit and makes commitments to go to these places but often forgets when, where and with whom he is going. As a precaution, he carries his passport with him at all times and is wont to disappear out of the country in a veritable flash.

A few months ago he was doing Matty Mulcahy’s funeral in Glengooley and, having finished the mass, he adjourned to the sacristy to disrobe. After 20 minutes or so there was no sign of him emerging to lead the procession to the grave. The undertaker, Tinky Ryan, went into the sacristy to investigate what was keeping him but there was neither hide nor hair of him among the sacred books, vessels and vestments. Thinking the priest might have got a lift to the graveyard, Tinky wheeled the coffin down the aisle, into the hearse and led the mourners to the burial ground.

At the cemetery there was no Fr Barney to greet them. Tinky looked at his watch, handed me a set of rosary beads and said: “Say one decade, Maurice, and make it fast. I’ll shake the holy water on him and we’ll leave the rest to St Peter. I have another funeral in Rathbinnis.”

Fr Barney didn’t show up for five days. It appears that when he went into the sacristy after Matty’s funeral mass, he was greeted by a very agitated taxi driver waiting to take him to Cork Airport where he was due to join a group on pilgrimage to Fatima. The taxi driver refused to let him return to the church and, bundling him into the car, took off for Cork.

The people love our holy man but they are at their wits’ end with him. Majella Greene, a niece of Moll Gleeson and a control freak like her aunt, is due to get married next week and Fr Barney is booked to tie the knot for her and her groom.

She has been planning this wedding since she was in junior infants and nothing except the weather is being left to chance. They say she has hired a private detective to shadow Fr Barney in case he disappears. CL