BLESS ME FATHER

Gerry Murphy’s Bless me Father was appropriately launched on St Patrick’s Day (March 17) at the current Time of the Writer festival in Durban.

Born into an Irish-Catholic family of ten children, Sean Riley overcomes a poverty-stricken childhood amidst the sectarian violence of Northern Ireland, the harsh reality of life in a poor Irish neighbourhood in post-war London and the terrible abuse of his drunken brutal father.

With self-belief inspired through music, and his anger exorcised by wrestling, the tortured youth, fired with a burning determination to achieve what his drunken brute of a father taunted he was incapable of, finally gathers strength enough to burst through the hopeless rubble of Roman Catholic dogma and broken dreams. He rises up and starts to live a victorious life of great accomplishment and worth. Through the gutsy spirit of this brave survivor, readers live the extraordinary successes of - first the broken boy, then the rebellious man, who without a formal education, becomes not only a Doctor of Philosophy and a leading Educationist, but also the Heavyweight Wrestling Champion of the World.

Bless me Father reveals that Sean Riley’s tragic childhood is not an isolated aberration in the world today. Besides food and shelter, we all need love and moral role models. When these are not present in the home, answers must come from outside. Nevertheless, not all is lost. Through the shattered psyche of this indomitable Irish son, beginning as a small boy, bewildered and unloved, in a hostile and war torn world, we are shown that all we ever need is already within each one of us.

The novel is a moving testament to the courage and resilience of the human spirit against overwhelming odds and adversity. It is also a damning indictment of religion practiced in the letter and not the spirit. The Catholic priests, so long looked up to as man’s link to God, sometimes seem to be the very antithesis of all that Christ stood for. This theme pervades in all three novels.