Certainly not in its traditional Irish sense. The numbers of priests and nuns and brothers have shrunk to virtually nothing. You must remember that 50 years ago something like one in four, one in five professional people in Ireland were men or women of the cloth. Bohan says Ireland is still a Catholic country in name. And it could not be defined, I think, as Catholic in any sense anymore.
Church attendance is less than half of what it was a decade ago.
And the church's authority has declined even further. And everyone seems to be in a hurry. The Ireland of the ballads and the bards, so romanticized in the bars of Boston and New York, is disappearing. We were known perhaps for eccentricity, but certainly for a lack of punctuality. If an Irishman said he'd meet you, well he might show up - he might show up a week after, or he might not show up at all.