News Item: : Another Old Pub, Some Canal Boats and St. Anselm - It Must Have Been My Birthday!
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Saturday 22 April 2017 - 11:12:15

Speaking of interesting old pubs, we headed off yesterday to the Ship Inn in the West Lancashire village of Haskayne. The Ship Inn dates all the way back to the 1750's, and finds itself situated next to a nice and tranquil stretch of the Leeds to Liverpool boat canal.

Canal boats are permitted to tie up overnight along this stretch and there are often interesting and friendly folks to greet along each bank of the waterway in the local area. 

The Leeds to Liverpool canal was originally constructed as a major transport route during the heyday of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, the very first cutting for the canal was made not far from Haskayne at Halsall, with a commencement ceremony taking place there in the year 1770.

Of course, the old canals were long ago supplanted by the later revolutions in road and rail transport. Today, the waterway is more of a place for natural conservation, pleasure boating and country walks.

We usually take Mum for such gentle strolls along this peaceful stretch of the canal a few times each year, between the seasons of spring and early autumn. As yesterday was my 45th Birthday, we booked a table at the Ship Inn, to partake of some golden ale and a plate of tasty beer-battered fish and chips (''fries'' for our North American readers!).

The Ship Inn was taken over by new management in January. We received a very warm welcome from them and noticed that they have already made some sympathetic enhancements to the interior. The food was first class in terms of taste, presentation and speed of delivery to the table. It was also very ''moreish'' - all it really lacked was extra volume! 

Since Mum suffered her stroke in 2014, she has to be fed everything with spoons and straws. In light of that, we particularly appreciated the fact that the new landlady at the Ship let us sit together in the private comfort of the warm ''snug''.

Mum's condition has now got to the point where I have to introduce myself to her afresh about three times on some days; this seems to happen more on dull or stormy days than on those that are brighter. Obviously, it can be tough in winter, when it can happen about 7 times each day! One gets to know just when Mum is beginning to experience such confusion and how to gradually bring her back reassuringly to recognition and calmness again. I find it most effective to just keep smiling to her face and to gently repeat a few times, ''It's me, Ma... It's your son, Al''. Most times, the light will suddenly go on in her eyes and she begins to laugh and show some delight. It can be emotionally very hard to go through this a few times each day. Not being known by one's Mum must rank amongst the most painful of this life's experiences. It is not something that you ever really get used to. On the other hand, there is always the joy of that moment of renewed recognition to savour!

The Ship Inn has some nice outdoor eating areas, where one can watch the occasional canal boat go chugging by. Most times, the owners will give a friendly wave as they pass. Still, the late-April weather was sufficiently chill and overcast to deter us yesterday and, aside from snapping this picture of Angie and Mum in the grounds, we settled into the snug for several hours instead!

The Halsall area is also an interesting location in terms of Catholic history. As with so many places in Lancashire, there were notable enough numbers of recusants, who refused to give up the Catholic religion at the time of the Protestant ''Reformation''.

J.A Hilton's book Catholic Lancashire contains some interesting data regarding Catholic recusancy in the Halsall area.

For example, a detailed official survey was carried out in 1596 from the province of York. Given the amazing things happening at the FSSP church at St. Mary's in Warrington, it is fascinating to note that this official report lists some 456 Catholic recusants in the south-western deanery of Warrington, which constituted a larger number than in all of the other local deaneries put together. Of course, that was anyway a larger population centre than rural Halsall, and the recorded number of 8 recusants around Halsall is of interest, given the penalties of remaining faithfully Catholic in those grim times.

Later on, this time in 1639, a list of the Catholic gentry and clergy was compiled for the collection of a subsidy for the King's campaign against the Scots ''rebels''.

Although this later list was also produced under government pressure, it is notable for having been drawn up under the superiors of the Catholic clergy with the help of some local Catholic gentry. As J. A. Hilton acknowledges, this document is thus a rare and useful example of an ''internal Lancashire Catholic document of the period''.

In any case, this primary source of evidence shows that, even in 1639 after decades of anti-Catholic persecution, Halsall could still boast of four entire households of Catholic gentry. Of course, that could mean a somewhat larger figure of actual Catholic faithful, especially when one factors in the unrecorded numbers of sympathetic staff, servants, friends and other locals.

Much later, as the Industrial Revolution took hold, the numbers of Catholics throughout Lancashire would be massively swelled by the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants. Canal building itself attracted such an influx of labour. In 1767, the House of Lords ordered a return to be made of all the ''papists'' residing in every parish in England. That primary source document records 25,139 Catholics in the diocese of Chester, and 42,777 in the rest of England put together. In the century that followed, those numbers would soar ever higher though increased industrialization and the mass migration triggered by the Irish potato famines. In the meantime, that particular 1767 document confirms the fact that Lancastrian Catholicism remained, even after two centuries of Protestant hegemony, as a vigorous force in its traditional Lancastrian strongholds.

At that point in time, the government's official report listed no fewer than 228 Catholics living in the rural Halsall area. The larger townships of Ormskirk and Wigan listed 1,082 and 1,692 respectively. The city of Liverpool, due largely to the influx of tradesmen associated with the shipping industry, could at that time return a figure of 1,743 Catholics. In 1705, there had been but 18 Catholics listed in the whole of the city!

Present-day Haskayne is a peaceful place to get out of the post-modern rat-race and take some fresh air for a while. The Ship Inn stands next to a small and quiet road brige, near to a gradual curve in the long waterway. You can do some deep thinking at those picnic tables on a pleasant afternoon. Certainly, you can if the weather holds; we got rained off from a chip supper there, early last September!

As I reflected on this blog during my birthday this time last year, birthdays give us a particular opportunity to thank God for the gifts of our birth, families, baptism, friends and ongoing conversion.

They also give us a moment to take stock and ask whether we are closer to, or further away from, Our Blessed Lord, than we were this time last year. Being assured that we are now one year closer to our own death, judgement and the eternity which follows, we ought also to renew the offer of our hearts to God, and again give over to Him the direction and ultimate destination of our lives from this point on.

As I've also said a couple of times, my birthday is also the traditional date on which the Church celebrates St. Anselm of Canterbury; one of my heroes in the Catholic Faith.

Although the Friday of the Easter Octave took precedence this year, let's conclude with a piece from St. Anselm's classical Monologion; a treatise perhaps best savoured in the company of loved ones, sitting by a silent waterway, with a refreshing pint of golden ale!

Rational Creation was Made to Love the Supreme Essence by St. Anselm of Canterbury

For a rational creature, to be rational is simply to be able to tell the difference between the just and the unjust, the true and the untrue, the good and the not good, and the greater and the lesser good.

But this ability by itself, without love and loathing (based on correct principles of judgement), is quite pointless and superfluous. Hence, it is clear that since the point of rational existence is to judge, according to rational principles, between the good, the less good and the no good, the point is also to love or spurn (with appropriate intensity) the object judged.

It is as patently obvious, therefore, as can be, that the rational creature is made for this purpose: to love the supreme essence above all other goods (insofar as the supreme essence is, after all, the good above all other goods).

Indeed, its purpose is, in fact, to love the supreme essence and only to love the other things for the sake of the supreme essence.

This is because the supreme essence is good through itself, while everything else is only good through it.

But, it cannot love the supreme essence unless it strives to become conscious of and to understand it.

So, it is quite clear, as a result, that what the rational creation ought to do, is to put all its power and all its will into becoming conscious of, understanding and loving the supreme good. This is what rational creation recognizes that its existence is for.

And, as the corpus of St. Anselm's deep writings demonstrates and makes clear: the supreme good, at the heart of all things, is none other than the Most Holy Trinity; made known to us by the Divine Revelation, which descends to, but raises to new and unimagineable heights and depths, the knowledge and love which may be accessed by our natural reason.

St. Anselm of Canterbury - Pray for us!

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
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