Irish Letter: on Rihanna, religion and regeneration

Ten years have gone by since farmer Alan Graham looked out across his land next to the main road from Belfast to Bangor in time to see the international popstar Rihanna being videoed, topless, in front of his barn to the accompaniment of her hit, “We Found Love“.   

On the side of the barn, in letters three feet high, were inscribed the words of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. 

It was not a match made in heaven, and Graham, aged 61, was not amused. Racing his tractor across the acres of misunderstanding that divided him from the raunchy Barbadian songstress, he insisted that she cover up at once and that she and her crew should henceforth get off his land. 

Cue Facebook and Twitter. Overnight, Graham – a local councillor for the Democratic Unionist Party – found that he had become an internet sensation. Fans of Rihanna, led by her 103 million Twitter followers, were hugely entertained. They couldn’t get enough of their heroine, clothed or unclothed. 

But in Ulster, even among those opposed to the DUP and its notoriously narrow religious stance, the feeling was that the Alderman was well within his rights and that the singer and her production team had overstepped the bounds of civilised behaviour. 

A day is, of course, an age in social media, and the incident has long since been forgotten – except that Alan Graham has spent much of the last decade campaigning against sexualised music videos, culminating in a documentary in which he stars, to be aired on Monday by BBC Northern Ireland.

The programme’s central message, against all expectations, succeeds in uniting New Testament and woke thinking: “Young people see this type of explicit sexual behaviour before they are physically, emotionally and mentally ready. It possibly leads to abusive relationships. We need to move away from measuring women’s worth this way.”

Driving by Graham’s farm on Wednesday on my way back to my sister’s from a raid on Marks & Spencer, I glanced at the verse from John’s gospel and remembered that the previous day I had passed a rock on the shores of Strangford Lough bearing the legend, “Prepare to meet thy God”.

Northern Ireland is that kind of place – and not just because terrorists have embraced a similar message in the past. Church and Chapel, though in decline, still boast an impressive turnout on Sunday mornings. 

Unlike in France, where the clergy appear to travel incognito, priests and pastors here are still recognised as leading community members, quoted every day in the local press and on radio and television. For a convinced atheist like me, belief in the divine is challenging to comprehend. 

I am constantly at a loss. Where I live in Brittany, as across the whole of France, religion has reverted to cult status. It simply isn’t talked about, and it has ceased to be part of the national conversation.

Not so in Northern Ireland. People here change churches in the way that others change their cars, shifting their adherence in accordance with the reputation of the various incumbents as they reveal their version of The Truth or move on to glory. 

My sister and brother-in-law switched from one High-Anglican church where the vicar had embarked on a scandalous affair to another, on the rebound, more evangelical, but boring, before setting on one in which the sermons, while intelligent and well constructed, rarely last more than ten minutes.

North Down, where my family have generally ended up, is, I would say, 85 per cent Protestant, but the centrally-placed town of Holywood, with which I am most familiar, has a much larger percentage of Catholics and is known for being not merely the most lively town in the province, but the most relaxed and – importantly – the most tolerant. 

Some years ago, the local Catholic church, Saint Colmcille’s, was firebombed by Loyalists. Today, it has risen again, using money raised by both communities. If anyone in the area disapproves, they are keeping it quiet.

The best known of the town’s pubs, Ned’s, situated next to the Maypole, attracts a bewildering clientele made up of doctors, lawyers, politicians, top civil servants and business leaders, as well as train drivers, binmen, shopworkers and the unemployed, all without regard to class or religious or political preference. 

Pints of Guinness are brought to the table by barmen wearing aprons; there is horse-racing on the television, with the sound only turned up for the final furlong; court cases are discussed; expert advice is sought and given; and everyone is greeted as they come in even if, like me, they haven’t crossed the threshold for the previous two years.

It helps that North Down is the Surrey of Ulster. There are more Bentleys and BMWs here than you could shake a stick at. The roads around Crawfordsburn, with its thatched inn dating back to 1614, can scarcely contain the number of manor houses, “demesnes” and “gentleman’s residences” that jostle with each other amid the mature trees, next to the lough and the country park. 

What matters is that everyone gets along and, just as important, now that it is open again after a protracted Covid closure, that they get along to Ned’s.I won’t be going to church on Sunday in North Down. But the faithful don’t need me. They never have.

And afterwards, when they have made their peace with God, they will either be serving up roast lamb with Comber potatoes and minted peas or else answering the door to the Asian delivery men bearing chicken tikka masala or king prawns in garlic sauce.

Like Van Morrison – a local resident – once famously said, wouldn’t it be nice if it was like this every day?