While I am not normally one that likes to eat my own words so to speak, I have to say that I was surprised last Wednesday to see so many people in Dublin City Centre with ashes on their foreheads. Being the not-so-devout Catholic that I am, I had also happened to forget that it was Ash Wednesday, cue the look of dawning realisation which appeared on my face in the middle of Grafton St. What interested me about the day was the fact that so many people were oblivious to the crosses that they were displaying. 

The cross is used on our foreheads as a sign that we repent and are 'carrying our cross' out of the church and into the world. Yet everyone I seen on the streets that day looked like they had totally forgotten that it was the beginning of a forty day diet which Catholics undertake, both in preparation for Easter and as a way of spiritually “joining” Jesus with the fasting and meditation he did in the wilderness. Yet it was quite strange to see different nationalities partaking of this ritual also as I observed both Asians and Africans bearing the ashes. While I have no idea as to their nationality, they could be born and reared in any of the counties around Ireland, it was nice to see how Ireland has become an extended community and that religion does not pay any heed to race or origins.

But it was very obvious that the majority of people in Dublin did not attend the traditional Ash Wednesday mass, 30 or 40 years ago the ratio would look the opposite way. There would be a higher number of people with the ashes than without. Indeed, I even over heard one child whispering to her mother "Look at the man with the dirty face, Mammy." Innocence maybe, but it tragically reflects the steep slope Ireland is facing regarding religion.