St Joseph’s church is a stark, yellowish 1960s building, reminiscent of a modern American church in its air of entitlement, but now desperately in need of a lick of less sickly looking paint. It stands in the little Irish town of Ballyjamesduff – Ballyduff to the locals – in County Cavan, not far from the Northern Ireland border. But this is very Catholic Ireland. Or it was.

The paint was fresher in 1979, when John Paul II made his famous visit to the country, uttering the unforgettable words “Ireland, semper fidelis” – always faithful. Whatever other worries the Pope had then, the Irish church was not among them.