Let me tell ye about a unique day I had recently which featured cold water first, and then fire and brimstone, and ended with MacConnell in the pulpit of the striking St. Flannan's Cathedral in the heart of Ennis town in the County Clare in front of a capacity congregation!

I've orated in many's the spot during my blathering lifetime, but this was a first. Now I know what it feels like to be a bishop.

It's uplifting and empowering up there - an ego trip. You can understand more easily how an odd bishop goes astray.

What happened was I got an emergency call from the organizing committee of an Armistice Day service in the cathedral a few days earlier. The tenor Gerry Lynch was not available to sing my anti-war song "Christmas 1915 in the Trenches" during the service, so would I come along as a substitute?

I reluctantly agreed. The baritonic voice which is acceptable in a pub singsong is not acousticated for a pulpit.

Anyway, I agreed. That accounted for the fire and brimstone that would come at the end of the day, bullets and bombs and shellfire around the cloisters.

The water? That's another story altogether. It occupied the morning.

You see (and I've mentioned them before) the Dutch Nation and I are the possessors of the best mouser cats in the parish in the feline presences of Twopence and Thruppence.

They have lined up so many dead mice and shrews on the cottage doorstep all year that the area often looked like a No Man's Land.

But the one area of the house from which they are barred is the kitchen. Probably the last desperate mouse and his family spotted a loophole in the kitchen wall and moved into the press under the sink.

I responded with small trays of poison. Over three days the baits were taken, and I assumed the problem was dealt with.

It was on the morning of Armistice Day that I heard a hissing in the kitchen and the floor was wet. Probably with his dying breaths the mouse had punctured a plastic pipe.

The decent plumber who arrived hours later told me that mice are inclined to do that. He repaired the damage speedily. It took a lot longer to clear away the water on the floor and behind the washing machine.

For a long time that kitchen was as damp as a trench. It could have been worse, but it was bad enough. Meanwhile, Twopence and Thruppence slept peacefully together on the couch.

Life is a wonderful journey. The organizers of the service phoned in the afternoon to check that I would arrive on time.

One of them, discussing the Clare contribution to the Great War, told me that nearly 800 Claremen had been recorded as having died in the conflict. He also told me that most of them were in the Munster Fusiliers or the Connacht Rangers and were from Kilrush.

In fact, per capita, the small seaside town of Kilrush, with a soldiering tradition, had supplied more soldiers to the Great War than any other town in the whole British Isles. That surprised me. I thought about it as I went shopping for my newspaper, cigarettes and a cup of coffee in Shannon.

It's November and recession time, so the Christmas shopping season has been brought forward sharply by the retailers in the shopping center. Earlier than ever before I noticed small boys and girls stopping in their tracks with rounded eyes and making the connection between Santa Claus and the bearded man drinking coffee.

I'm used to it by now.

A mammy brought a small lad over to me, and I gave my usual spiel about not being Santa but his older brother. I'd deliver a message to him, I said, as long as he behaved himself between now and Christmas.

A young couple at the next table joined in the craic, and later we had an interesting conversation about spiders. He was a member of a scientific team in Sheffield studying cobwebs!

It seems that the formula for making the seven kinds of cobwebs which spiders can produce is extra special. It is stronger than steel for example. The team is tantalizingly close to being able to create synthetic cobweb textiles which will have a whole variety of amazing applications including, he said, 100% bulletproof vests which would be as light as a feather.

Which brought my evening appointment back to mind.

I arrived at the cathedral on time. Before I knew it I'd passed through a token and peaceful Sinn Fein protest group on the steps and was within.

The benches were all full.

The Mayor of Clare Madeline Quinn and all the politicians were in the front benches.

There was a rifle laid before the altar, and on a screen behind there scrolled the names of the Clare dead. A piper played lonesome laments. There were touching readings and poems and prayers and the laying of wreaths, including one from Kilrush.

And at the appointed time I mounted the pulpit, faced them all like a man and bellowed forth my ballad of the singing of 'Silent Night.' leading to that unofficial truce on Christmas Day, and then the fire and brimstone of the next day when all started again, bayonets, bombs, bullets, gas, rusty wire, flame and the singers slaughtered.

I got through it all right to tell ye the truth. And I felt like a bishop for five minutes!

Wars go on. When I got home a few hours later there was another poor, small, dead murdered mouse on the front doorstep.