The summer of 1979

"It's funny, but I had no sense of living without aim, the day before you came." (Abba)

In those days we lived in a housing estate in the south west of Dublin. Unfortunately I had to travel to work in a distant part of north Dublin, many miles away. It might not seem like a big deal now. After all Dublin was not then, and still is not, a particularly large city. But I did not drive and I had to take several buses to get to work and back. Those trips took about 2½ hours out of each day.

However the reason that far-off time sticks in my mind has nothing to do with my job or my transport arrangements. It’s because throughout those months I was on edge, expectant, as if I needed to prepare for something. I felt so restless that I started doing physical exercises each morning. Don’t laugh, but I thought I should become fitter for what might be on the way. It is not that I dreaded this ‘something’, whatever it was - quite the opposite. If I dwelt on the feeling at all, it was entirely positive. But mostly I did not think or speak about it very much. In fact I pushed it to the back of my mind.

Then a few months later that ‘something’ happened. At the time I did not make the connection, but later on I could see how one relates to the other.

I was perusing a Sunday newspaper in March 1980 when I came across an arresting headline, “God talking - in the life of Brian”.¹ There was a photograph accompanying the article. It was Brian Cleeve! He had been a famous TV personality some years earlier but I had not seen him on the box for a long time. I read the article and my life changed forever.

Although the journalist who penned the article was clearly sceptical, I was able to glean from the piece that Brian Cleeve had written a book called The House on the Rock. The book contained the author’s dialogue with God! I could not have explained then and there what was happening inside my mind, but I was hooked immediately. You can find out more about that moment elsewhere and I won’t repeat myself here.² But I do want to describe, if I can, what it was like to feel the ground shift beneath my feet.

For some reason I assumed that everyone must be going through the same thing as me. It was as if I was taking part in a global awakening that was also affecting others, including those close to me. However I quickly realised this was not the case. When I spoke to a friend shortly afterwards about what had happened to me, he did not know what I was talking about. It dawned on me that what I was feeling was not shared by anyone else. This ‘something’ was just for me – I was alone!

Eventually, when I met others who had been in touch with Brian about The House on the Rock, I could see that I was not alone. A few people, mostly in Ireland, had been seized with the same inner compulsion when they came across that book.

That was over 40 years ago. I was in my late-twenties back then. Maybe I will write more about the fabulous adventures I had since - and continue to have. For now though I will say only this.

God is real. I am as convinced of that fact as I am that water is wet.

1. Sunday Independent, March 23 1980.

2. J.P. Bruce, Television Doesn't Like Rebels: The life of Brian Cleeve (Raleigh, NC, 2024), pp. 234-7.