Cleary's holy show also a saving grace

Independent.ie

He couldn't sing or dance and his jokes were awful -- but being a priest gave him a shtick, says Declan Lynch

He was a broadcaster, a raconteur, a counsellor, a cabaret singer, a footballer, a sex educator, a golfer, a poker player, a priest, a smoker, a racing enthusiast, and of course, a husband and father. Virtually the only thing he wasn't, according to his fans, was a paedophile. Which is regarded in these circles as something of a compliment. And he didn't drink. Which in the circumstances, makes this one of those rare Irish situations which could not be made any worse by the gargle.

But, above all, he was a performer. He was in showbusiness. And as we look back on that time, at those great scenes of the Clearys at home, we get a view of Ireland as a country which was committed, not to religion, but to showbusiness.

Indeed in recent times, we have demonstrated that we could gladly let go of the old religion, but that we remain addicted to the showbusiness. And it is ultimately by viewing Cleary in this light that we find redemption for him, as we must, even when presented with a lifetime of such epic blackguardism.

Only when we view him as a tragic showbusiness figure, can we also see the scale of his achievement, which was summed up by his son Ross: he got away with it.

It was Cleary's great misfortune that he loved showbusiness, but that he wasn't really any good at anything, such as singing, or dancing, or playing the guitar.

Yet he had a shtick. The mere fact of his being a priest in Ireland at that time, transformed all his bad singing and bad dancing and bad jokes into something else, something that he could take all the way to the top.

A lot of guys could work a room, but a guy who was also a priest was "coming with a double handful", as they say on the track. And once he had achieved that vital penetration, he had it made. He had his way with the women. He did a lot of work for charidee. And, like many another showbiz figure, he had a complicated private life. In fact, it was so complicated, there has probably never been anything quite like it, even in the business they call show.

Because the one slight problem with his shtick, is that he couldn't just pretend to be a priest. For it to work, he actually had to be a real priest, who said mass and who heard confessions and all that stuff, and who didn't have sex with women and have children and so on and so forth.

He got around that problem, simply by ignoring it. So he became a real priest, as he had to do, in order to become a star. But otherwise he carried on like any other showbiz figure, in what could loosely be called his private life.

And it worked for him. But towards the end, it may have dawned on him, that in his desperate desire to succeed, he had also made a Big Mistake. At some point in the journey which he was plotting in his deranged fashion, he forgot that it was all bullshit. That being a broadcaster, a raconteur, a counsellor, a cabaret singer, a footballer, a sex educator, a golfer, a poker player, a smoker, and a racing enthusiast, and an all-round showbiz personality was real. But that the rest was bullshit.

He forgot that the religious aspect of his career, this great monument of bullshit which he had constructed was indeed bullshit, and nothing but bullshit.

Yes it had been the vital element which had given him an edge over a thousand other "gas characters" who couldn't sing or who couldn't dance either. But it was just a shtick after all, wasn't it?

I mean, you wouldn't be going on The Late Late Show arguing for the most hardline "Catholic teaching", when you yourself on a daily basis were quite sensibly ignoring every aspect of the same "Catholic teaching". You wouldn't be doing that, would you?

Well, that's what Cleary did, and he did it for years. And again we must go for the kindest interpretation, which again we arrive at through the showbusiness route.

Maybe he just felt that the "liberal agenda" was box office, and that the man who stood against it, would at least guarantee himself a place in the media limelight.

He wasn't just some grey theologian after all, or some harpie from the Anti-Happiness League, he was the Singing Priest, a man who liked a good time.

Yes this would give him an edge, in the battle against the liberals. And if he ever felt that there might be a small bit of hypocrisy involved, he would tell himself that we are all sinners, which made it all right.

So when we marvel at how Cleary in his situation could have risked so much, perhaps we must resist the psychiatric aspects, and simply conclude that he was a performer, so that is what he did.

If ranting against abortion put bums in seats, that's what he would do. If denouncing condoms got him an audience, and the attention he craved, he could not stay away from it.

And in this, he knew his people only too well. He knew that the Irish are suckers for a bit of an oul' song, and a story, that we'll watch anyone making an eejit out of himself, or even occasionally doing it right.

So we put Cleary up there.

And by God, he delivered.

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