David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Reference was made to President Michael D. Higgins. This House was good enough for our current President, former President Mary Robinson, who was one of our greatest Presidents and should be good enough for the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, also.

I am inspired by my good friend, Senator Paul Coghlan. I was too bashful to mention the Fitzpatrick-Mac Giolla Phádraig families. In terms of celebrations and The Gathering and so on, we should take on board the clan idea. There are many hundreds of thousands, perhaps, millions of people who have great Irish names such as Fitzpatrick, Doyle, Deenihan, Barrett, Coghlan and O'Keeffe. Let us invite them to this House and celebrate. Who knows what glorious things we will dig up? Let us celebrate something of which even His Eminence, Pope Francis, may be unaware, namely, the existence of the Irish Pope.

I doubted that I could be correct until I read on the GAA website that Pope Pupeus abdicated because he had to play a hurling match on the Aran Islands. According to an article by the former editor of The Irish Times, Conor Brady, he was from County Laois and was among the ancestors of the Mac Giolla Phádraig clan. He was educated at Clonenagh monastery and went around with his great friend, St. Enda, until the latter became homesick and came back. They were so impressed by Benedict's holiness that they elected him pope, but after the departure of St. Enda, he became so homesick that he returned after only three days. He was never officially crowned but he is a pope. We should make a meal out of that because it is a bloody good story. It is every bit as good as the bleeding statues.