My friends tell me to stop discussing religion on first and second dates

Irish Times

2 days ago

It began, like most of my whims do, with a dream. In this one, I had rented a cottage in east
Cork
, cooked a three-course meal and invited four Irish nuns over for dinner. We shared red wine and sherry and, by dessert, I was interviewing them about their lives. They told me what had drawn them to a life of devotion and how they saw the future of the church.
I woke up disappointed. Not by anything the imaginary nuns had said, but because I was no longer in that quiet cottage in east Cork, sipping sherry with women of faith.
Still caught in the glow of the dream, I texted a friend asking if she knew some nuns that could help me recreate my dream dinner party. She once spent a summer beekeeping with nuns in the west of Ireland. 'What a random request,' she replied. 'I do know some nuns, but they're American.'
What I longed for was the grounded, unvarnished wisdom of Irish nuns, the kind who understand the subtleties of Irish humour and historical context of a country still reckoning with its faith.
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Over the past two years, I have felt a calling to return to Christianity. I never formally left Christianity but rather lost it along the way.
A clear memory I have of defending Christian churches in the past year was on a date with a guy I met on a dating app.
I was discussing the importance of the sacred space within the confines of a church. He told me that churches should be repurposed into something more useful.
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The date ended soon after. Friends suggested that I not discuss religion on even a second date. 'Elle, wait until the fifth – at least.' Maybe they're right.
I opened my phone and started scrolling and was soon checking every social media app I own. A bad habit, I know. I thought maybe I could kill two birds with one stone. A spiritual retreat and a digital detox. Maybe even throw in some hiking.
I googled 'Christian retreat in Glendalough', found their email address and requested a stay there for three nights.
A few weeks later I set off from the Dublin-Kildare border to Glendalough. I found myself wondering what I was doing.
For years I couldn't stand silence; if it wasn't music, it was a podcast filling the air. But ever since a brief bout of tinnitus last year, brought on by a virus, I've come to understand the old phrase 'silence is golden' on a deeper level.
I arrived in Glendalough and admired the stonework of the buildings as well as the beautifully kept gardens. I was shown to the library and prayer room, and told that prayer times were in the morning and the evening. Then I was escorted to my hermitage.
There are five hermitages on the grounds that were built in 2000. It was equipped with everything you could need – a livingroom with a single bed and a wood-burning stove, a warm wooded kitchen and a simple bathroom.
That evening I walked into the prayer room. One of its windows looked out on to the Wicklow landscape.
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A woman led most of the prayers and, although not a nun, she had a godliness about her that I've only ever encountered from nuns I've met in real life (and in my dreams).
She also played music on a CD player. We read a poem and she hit a gong and told us our 25 minutes of meditation would begin. It struck me how similar this space felt to the moments I find while hiking, which, of all the forms of exercise I've tried, is the one that best helps me untangle my thoughts. I hiked a lot during my stay. Though I was alone, I felt an unexpected sense of connection to the landscape, to the silence, even to passing strangers. Between prayers, hiking and the occasional small talk with others, the retreat became a welcome sanctuary from the background hum of 'progress'.
My time away rekindled a quiet certainty in me: my return to Christianity is inevitable. But I find myself wondering: what exactly am I returning to?
As a teenager, I felt ashamed of my faith. That shame slowly frayed my connection to it, leaving me disillusioned with what was on offer. Now, in my late 20s, there's a comforting steadiness in knowing who I am. Still, the question remains: what does it mean to reconnect with Christianity on my own terms?
Maybe I won't know until I have that dream dinner with four Irish nuns, red wine, sherry and a table full of stories in a rented cottage in east Cork.
Eleanor O'Dwyer is a 27-year-old Dublin-based writer