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Well. That was a fairly interesting day.
Until this morning, I hadn't met my eighty-year-old great-uncle the Jesuit* in the better part of a dozen years, not since I was ten years old and more interested in avoiding family gatherings than seeing if there were any interesting people among the relatives.
Some hitherto unknown sense of family feeling** came over me last week, however, and I sent him an email. Pursuant to the subsequent conversation, he invited me to drop in to the SJ's centre on Leeson St Lwr and have a chat with him.
Leeson St., for those of you who don't know Dublin, is one of a number of long streets of Georgian-period houses up past St. Stephen's Green. Many of them are still, externally at least, very similar to how they were when they were first built, and many now home to modern offices, restaurents, and the odd set of up-market apartments. The Jesuits own three of those houses: a very impressive little complex, indeed.
My great-uncle turns out to be a rather interesting person. Having entered orders in the fifties, he spent a good long time in Japan, as well as some years in the Philipines and in the US. Apparently, he took a PhD in psychology in the seventies in New York. Turns out he's a good conversationalist, too: spent about an hour with him, longer than I expected.
Before I left, he insisted on showing me the Caraveggio -- well, the copy they have hanging in their chapel: the original is on extended loan to the National Gallery. It appears to be a point of pride: seems in the course of refurbishment a number of years ago, the Irish Jesuits unearthed an old canvas. Which, after restoration and consultation by specialists, turned out to be a lost Caraveggio, depicting the betrayal in the garden at Gethsemane. (I actually recognised it as a Caraveggio: he's a distinctive style, and I saw the rather more famous one in the cathedral in Valletta in Malta a few years ago. So when he showed it to me, I was, That's not a Caraveggio, is it?, fairly incredulous. But, seems to be.)
Fortunately he didn't ask me about my religious opinions, and I didn't volunteer. Because saying, "Oh, I'm an atheist," to a Jesuit is like showing a red rag to a bull. Or so I'm told.
Anyway, an interesting morning.
Achievements:
~80 pages Breeze and Dobson. Surviving arrival of the odious inconveniences of femalehood.
Running: 18 minutes for 1.5 miles, intervals: 7mph(4mins) + 3mph(3mins) + 7mph(3mins) + 3mph(2mins) + 7.5mph(2mins) + 3.5mph(cool-down period)
Weights.
Rowing: 5 minutes for 1km
*My late grandfather's brother. Yes, there's a priest in the family. They're not all like me. Actually, for the most part, they're not at all like me.
**Odd, that. Wonder whether it's something in the water.
Until this morning, I hadn't met my eighty-year-old great-uncle the Jesuit* in the better part of a dozen years, not since I was ten years old and more interested in avoiding family gatherings than seeing if there were any interesting people among the relatives.
Some hitherto unknown sense of family feeling** came over me last week, however, and I sent him an email. Pursuant to the subsequent conversation, he invited me to drop in to the SJ's centre on Leeson St Lwr and have a chat with him.
Leeson St., for those of you who don't know Dublin, is one of a number of long streets of Georgian-period houses up past St. Stephen's Green. Many of them are still, externally at least, very similar to how they were when they were first built, and many now home to modern offices, restaurents, and the odd set of up-market apartments. The Jesuits own three of those houses: a very impressive little complex, indeed.
My great-uncle turns out to be a rather interesting person. Having entered orders in the fifties, he spent a good long time in Japan, as well as some years in the Philipines and in the US. Apparently, he took a PhD in psychology in the seventies in New York. Turns out he's a good conversationalist, too: spent about an hour with him, longer than I expected.
Before I left, he insisted on showing me the Caraveggio -- well, the copy they have hanging in their chapel: the original is on extended loan to the National Gallery. It appears to be a point of pride: seems in the course of refurbishment a number of years ago, the Irish Jesuits unearthed an old canvas. Which, after restoration and consultation by specialists, turned out to be a lost Caraveggio, depicting the betrayal in the garden at Gethsemane. (I actually recognised it as a Caraveggio: he's a distinctive style, and I saw the rather more famous one in the cathedral in Valletta in Malta a few years ago. So when he showed it to me, I was, That's not a Caraveggio, is it?, fairly incredulous. But, seems to be.)
Fortunately he didn't ask me about my religious opinions, and I didn't volunteer. Because saying, "Oh, I'm an atheist," to a Jesuit is like showing a red rag to a bull. Or so I'm told.
Anyway, an interesting morning.
Achievements:
~80 pages Breeze and Dobson. Surviving arrival of the odious inconveniences of femalehood.
Running: 18 minutes for 1.5 miles, intervals: 7mph(4mins) + 3mph(3mins) + 7mph(3mins) + 3mph(2mins) + 7.5mph(2mins) + 3.5mph(cool-down period)
Weights.
Rowing: 5 minutes for 1km
*My late grandfather's brother. Yes, there's a priest in the family. They're not all like me. Actually, for the most part, they're not at all like me.
**Odd, that. Wonder whether it's something in the water.
