Fr Jerry was taking a well-earned rest in Limerick, and Fr Michael was late for Mass. When he arrived at last, he greeted us with a broad infectious grin. “Peace be with you!” he cried, and at that moment, a song thrush began to sing from the hawthorn beyond the butcher’s wall that abuts All Saints’ Church. I heard it through the still-open porch door.

We have song thrushes nesting in a neighbour’s garden, and from dawn to dusk the male sings from the still leafless ash tree, filling our world with music.