Believe It or Not: A Memoir

Patrick Semple was born into the minority Church of Ireland community in Wexford at the beginning of the second world war. 'These were the days of Catholic triumphalism when ecumenism in provincial Ireland was non-existent.' 'The Sunday morning service was much more than a meeting for the worship of Almighty God according to the Anglican tradition, it was the coming together of a tiny minority affirming their distinctiveness and their determination to survive . . . There was a strong sense of allegiance . . . to the Church of Ireland, which was more 'tribal' than theological.' This is a very straight-talking, honest and often humorous insider account of growing up in such a church in such a society.