There is one other thing that shows how religion is regarded in Ireland today: The power of the press on reporting clerical errors and wrongdoings. When the scandal about clerical abuse was broken by The Irish Times, there were people who would not believe it, they thought it was a scandalous story invented by the paper. They obviously paid no heed to the fact that the Times was and still is, regarded as one of the more respectable papers.

There is some form of church related scandal to be seen nearly every week now. If not a new story there there is an ongoing one which is being continuously covered. There was a time when stories like these were hushed up and some families were allegedly paid off to keep these stories out of the papers.

It is only in more recent times, when these people have come forward to tell their stories , that we can see just how much power the church used to have in Ireland, and just how much power they have also lost.