The goodness of Guinness

Letters to the Editor of The Tablet

Dr Niall Meehan (Letters, 11 October), writing in response to Lucy Lethbridge’s review of the Netflix drama series House of Guinness (“Pint-sized nonsense”, Arts, 27 September), claims that a sectarian hierarchy prevailed at top level in the famous brewery.

He quotes Finbarr Flood, a Catholic managing director of the Dublin brewery appointed in 1989, to support the assertion. I joined the St James’s Gate brewery at the same time as Finbarr Flood and we were contemporaries, if not rivals.

I, a Catholic from Bray, County Wicklow, joined the company at the age of 18 as a clerk. I left 14 years later with degrees in computer science and management, all paid for by Guinness. I never experienced any sectarian preference.

In my time Guinness proactively provided opportunities for many Catholics. Finbarr Flood himself was preceded by another Catholic – Paddy Galvin from Cork – as managing director.

Top production management (brewers) were recruited from Cambridge and Oxford graduates in natural sciences. And only the best graduates were good enough for Guinness. This was a recruitment bias based on science, not religion.

Far from “reading newspapers with their feet up”, Mark Hely Hutchinson and Guy Jackson, both famous managing directors of Guinness, both of them Irish and Protestant, actively encouraged Catholic managers to aspire to high positions.

Both men were esteemed by their staff and by Ireland’s business leaders. They actively promoted Irish interests as a developing economy and a country in the European Union. These wise Protestants were meritocrats.

John Hynes
Greystones, Co Wicklow, Ireland

Conflicting rights

Maria Exall (Letters, 8 November) believes that Tina Beattie’s claim of lesbian concerns about conflicting rights is not borne out by evidence, because lesbian and bisexual women show the strongest support for trans people’s rights in polls.

Although she cites no specific poll, the YouGov 2023 survey incorporating 160 “cis” lesbians is frequently used in this regard.

But it also typifies some methodological issues with such polls, such as defining lesbians as “cisgender”, which could lead non-believers in gender identity theory to self-exclude, and asking only about personal views of transgender people, but not opinions on specific rights or beliefs, such as whether or not men can be lesbians.

In contrast, the For Women Scotland 2025 survey of 692 same-sex-attracted women found strong support for lesbian-only spaces (85.3 per cent impacted), and concerns about gender ideology (83.5 per cent) and men in lesbian spaces (82.1 per cent). These findings mirror the WiT collective’s 2025 survey of 2,943 women. Of the 536 lesbians, 96 per cent were concerned about losing lesbian groups and spaces.

People who talk about empathy and marginalisation in this debate might do well to read the testimonies of women recorded in these surveys as to the disdain, bullying and erasure facing lesbian women who do not believe support for trans rights should automatically imply accepting that women can never have exclusive spaces.

Philomena Heffernan
Minehead, Somerset

Papal consensus

Like other readers, I thought it ironic that the Catholic Church might be turned to for guidance on democracy (Letters, 1 November). There is, however, one aspect of Church governance from which our political masters might learn.

From the Council of Nicaea down to Vatican II, decisions on doctrine have not been taken on a simple majority vote, but after an attempt to achieve consensus. The same is true of papal elections, at least since the two thirds majority was introduced.

This requirement has been adhered to by the cardinal electors even though at times it led to long conclaves. Only John Paul II’s election constitution appeared to threaten the practice, but that was swiftly put right by Pope Benedict.

Michael Walsh
London N4

Dublin to Nigeria

“Faith of Our Fathers” was also very popular in Ireland (Letters, 1 November). Indeed, growing up in Dublin, I thought it was an exclusively Irish hymn.

It was sung with great gusto before the Gaelic football and hurling finals in Croke Park. Its rousing chorus filled the air before the national anthem and before the Archbishop of Cashel (patron of the Gaelic Athletic Association) threw in the ball and made a hasty retreat. The custom fell victim to secularisation around 1970.

Apparently Frederick William Faber penned two versions, one English and one Irish, which is just as well, as the lines “And through the truth that comes from God / England shall then indeed be free” would never have got near Croke Park.

Dr Séamas Ó Maitiú
Blessington, Co Wicklow, Ireland

I was intrigued when, a few weeks ago while our parish music group was planning for the coming week, “Faith of Our Fathers” – not my favourite hymn – was suggested by a member of our group who recently moved from Nigeria.

I was taken aback to learn that it is a favourite hymn there, but usually sung to the tune I recognise as “O Bread of Heaven”.

“So,” I asked her, “what do you sing in verse three, where we sing: ‘And through the faith that comes from God / England shall then indeed be free’?”

She smiled: “We sing ‘Nigeria’, of course.” And, of course, we sang it the next week. We invited the congregation to insert whichever country they felt most drawn to in verse three. Maybe I can learn to love this hymn after all.

Paddy O’Neill
Thornaby-on-Tees, North Yorkshire

Building fund cap

I am grateful to Lester May for his clarification (Letters, 8 November) on the question of public money “funding” the Church of England. He says this mainly comes via the Listed Places of Worship Scheme relief on VAT and is correct that this does not only apply to buildings in the care of the Church of England.

But is he aware that this scheme is now capped at £25,000? The small Jacobean church building of which I was the rector has spent over £500,000 on repairs in the last decade and will need to spend similar sums in the future.

Other European countries offer much greater financial support to their churches. In 2023 the expenditure of the Church of England was approximately £980 million, of which less than a third came from the parish share paid by its members – who are, of course, also taxpayers.

From this, the country gains a national presence of care for spirit and body in places where other agencies at present are thin or absent. It is not a self-serving institution.

(Revd) Christopher Swift
Coreglia Antelminelli, Lucca, Italy

Theology outreach

Describing the “flight or expulsion of theology from the university” (“Better in than out”, 1 November), Professor Faggioli concludes: “Promoting social justice and fostering moral … values … cannot be outsourced entirely to ecclesiastical institutions whose primary function is to train for the priesthood and ministry.”

But surely these activities are core to priestly formation; what is ministry for otherwise?

Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium enjoins theologians to “always remember that the Church and theology exist to evangelise, and not be content with a desk-bound theology” (paragraph 133).

Not every university town will have such an institution but there is nothing to stop Catholic or Christian student societies extending invitations to come and lecture.

I once heard the logical positivist A.J. Ayer give a talk in Matlock, rural Derbyshire. If an arch-atheist can leave his desk among the dreaming spires, so can theologians.

Harold Mozley
York

Parish dictators

Rev. Hans Bensdorp from Austria (Letters, 8 November) asks if I am afraid of what a bishops might do to me if I change anything in the lectionary. I can’t answer for Austria, but for an English layman a bishop is a distant figure, who only appears on special occasions.

The one I am worried about is my parish priest. Too many priests are terrified of laypeople showing any initiative at Mass, letting it become a “free for all”.

Priests in training should be made to recite every day: “Never be a dictator over any group that is put in your charge” (1 Peter 5:3).

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Creative genius

I was deeply moved by Deborah Nicholls-Lee’s review (8 November) of Sir Stanley Spencer’s exhibition. She brilliantly captures the tension between his emotional turmoil and creative genius.

Highlighting Spencer’s obsessive but cruel relationship with his wife and fellow painter Hilda Carline reveals some of his complexities as both an artist and a man.

His sense of the immanence of God in everyday life inspired some of the most striking and original depictions of Christ’s resurrection ever painted.

The chance to see Carline’s work displayed alongside Spencer’s at the new exhibition at Gainsborough’s House will surely help restore her centrality to his life and work.

Jonathan Chappell
London N19

Old Testament roots

I agree with Sr Elizabeth Obbard (Letters, 8 November) about the importance of the Old Testament roots of the New Testament. How can we understand the sacrificial death of Jesus without the concept of the Atonement (Leviticus 16) or indeed the idea of the Passover (Exodus 12/13) or the old and new covenants (Exodus 24, Jeremiah 31 and Mark 14:24)? These rituals and beliefs were clearly of the highest significance for the Jewish Jesus and his Jewish disciples.

Sue Trowbridge
Arlesford, Hampshire

Mythical Church

So the Transalpine Redemptorists in the Orkney Islands (News Briefing, 8 November) state that the modern Church does not represent “the Traditional Catholic Faith, the Faith of all times and of the saints”.

I wonder which age of this mythical perfect Church they are thinking of: presumably prior to the eighteenth century and the arrival of the newfangled St Alphonsus Liguori?

Fr David Sillince
Reading, Berkshire

Religious painter

I am researching the religious paintings of the British artist David O’Connell (1895-1976), my grandfather. During the 1950s/1960s building boom of Modernist Catholic churches in England, he received numerous commissions to paint altar pieces and Stations of the Cross.

These were in parishes such as Eltham, Hayes and Cranford in Greater London, as well as in Chichester, Worthing, Portsmouth, Selsey and Bosham on the south coast, possibly even churches in North America.

His painting style was equally Modernist, influenced by Sutherland, Nash and Cubism.

I am endeavouring to find out if there are any other churches or individuals who still have his paintings.

David Elliott
Chichester, West Sussex