Podcast of the book launch of Saved by a Woman, the new book in the acclaimed memoir series Losing Religion, Finding Myself by Joe Armstrong, author of the Joe the Human Substack. Humanist celebrant Eamon Murphy, interviews the author, Joe reads extracts from his second memoir, there is live music and recorded songs co-written by Andrea Patron, The Rayne and Joe Armstrong.
Recorded on 3 March 2024 at a live Zoom event. The podcast includes the first ever public performance of their new, yet-to-be-released song ‘So Glad I Married You’, which packs an emotional punch while telescoping a lifetime’s journey into two poignant verses.
Joe Armstrong reads from the 11th episode of Saved by a Woman in which he made his life-changing decision not to return to his priestly path. It’s some 30 years since the events recounted in the book happened, making it easier for the author to share with raw honesty and vulnerability.
One of the joys of writing a memoir is reconnecting with people from your past whom you’ve lost touch with. The book reignites old friendships and brings people together again.
Joe shares about the joy of writing, the buzz he got in his early 20s in 1985 hearing his ‘romantic fiction’ performed by professional actor Dan Riordan on the Gay Byrne Show on RTE Radio One, Ireland’s national broadcaster. He talks about never understanding why anyone would take vows of celibacy, obedience and poverty in order to be a teacher, given that there was no shortage of lay teachers to do the job.
He shares his process of writing his memoirs: reading his journals of the period, identifying key themes and turning points, building a structure for the book, writing it, rewriting it and handing it to his Editor and Chief, his wife, Ruth.
We listen to Every Moment co-written by Andrea Patron, The Rayne and Joe Armstrong. Joe wrote the basic lyrics and melody for this song more than 30 years ago, ten days after he proposed to Ruth. It’s a catchy love song and a marriage engagement song, sung beautifully by The Rayne, with Andrea Patron performing his magic on trumpet.
Joe introduces his second reading from Saved by a Woman, which celebrates his second meeting with Ruth, his attraction to her and his best ever birthday gift, received on his 30th birthday, of a chocolate biscuit, given to him by Ruth.
Eamon asks Joe about his lack of faith in himself to sustain a relationship and wonders where it came from. Joe feels it might have come from his dysfunctional family of origin, explored in his first memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe; and his parents’ unhappy marriage, which didn’t inspire him to believe that marriages could be happy.
Audience member Dara Hogan asks if theology faculties should be closed down in universities. Joe disagrees. He is glad he has a degree in theology. It informed his atheism, giving him the intellectual basis for informed unbelief.
PJ Conneely asks Joe about the Irish idea of the priest having his ‘mother’s vocation’. Joe says that was not the case with him. He doesn’t believe anyone has a priestly vocation. In rejecting his own ‘priestly vocation’, he judged all religions were made up and founded on a Big Lie. He contends that professional religious believers who believe, believe in a Big Lie.
Joe shares about his mother’s unquestioning religious faith. As an infant and child, you believe everything your parents tell you. Joe knows men ten or 20 years older than him for whom it was a matter of their mother’s vocation. Some have contacted him since the publication of his first memoir, saying how ogre-like their mother became when they abandoned their priestly vocation, and the public shame they felt at being, as it was then considered, a ‘spoilt priest’.
Eamon Murphy remembers a letter sent to Joe by his mother, reproduced in Saved by a Woman, in which Joe’s mother did not come across as embittered by his leaving. Joe confirms that she took his departure very well, congratulating him for his courage in doing so. In contrast, some of his confrères in the Marist Fathers had not been kind hearing about his decision to leave, while others were very generous in their response.
John O’Sullivan, who read Saved by a Woman and features in it, praises Joe’s courage, honesty and vulnerability in writing about his sexuality, and how relatively few people are 100 percent heterosexual or homosexual. John feels there is much there that is relevant and could be helpful to young people today. He questions the choice of title, suggesting that denigrates Joe’s self-salvation, attributing his salvation to his wife.
Joe refers to the phrase ‘saved by a woman’ in Ray LaMontagne’s song Trouble and how much Joe loves that song. And to his, Joe’s, sense of humour and his usurping the Christian mythology about Eve, supposedly bringing in all our woe; and Mary giving her ‘fiat’, which allowed ‘God’ to be born. While acknowledging John’s point that he, Joe, should acknowledge his self-salvation (and he does), Joe feels he couldn’t be as integrated, fulfilled and happy as he is without Ruth.
Joe introduces the second song of the night, never before heard in public. Andrea Patron came up with a magnificent melody and, together with The Rayne, all three wrote this powerful, poignant song together. Joe hopes he won’t be in tears at the end listening to it!
So Glad I Married You, is played in public for the first time ever, sung by The Rayne. Written by Andrea Patron, The Rayne and Joe Armstrong.
After hearing it, Eamon asks Joe how he’s feeling. Joe felt emotional and pays tribute to Andrea Patron and The Rayne.
Eamon says: You’ve long been a creator. Your radio documentary, books, articles, ceremonies. The music is relatively recent. How satisfying is it hearing this song and Every Moment. Is it the same buzz you got when you heard the professional actor reading your words on RTE’s Gay Byrne Show?
Yes, says Joe. Listening to The Rayne singing that song moves him. He adds that Saved by a Woman is a love story. Only while researching the second memoir did he rediscover the original Every Moment which he wrote 30 years ago.
‘If I hadn’t been religious, I think I would have spent my life in music. Music can do what religion is meant to do. What’s still beautiful about religion is often the music.’
Eamon observes that you don’t have to be religious to appreciate Handal’s Messiah.
Eithne Dempsey comments on the Church’s negative attitudes and teachings about sex. We originate from sex. She wonders how any religion could say that sex is wrong or that the pleasure of sex is wrong, as many religions do.
Berna McColgan, a practising Catholic, thanks Joe for making Ruth so happy but she feels sad that Joe no longer believes in God. She felt that he did believe in God deep down.
Joe thanks Berna and mentions that Paul Toomey, recently deceased, whom he regarded as his foster father, cried in recent years, hoping Joe would return to the faith, adding: I don’t believe in God. I don’t feel any need to believe in God.’
Berna points to belief in God stretching back through history but Joe responds they also believed the Earth was flat. He adds that those who believed in a sun god made a lot more sense than a lot of other religions because at least the sun exists!
Adrian Stannard, in the audience, suggested parallels between James Joyce and Joe Armstrong, especially Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the impact of a woman on helping awaken Joyce’s perspective, and asks if Joe was influenced by Joyce.
Joe confirms the parallels. ‘Utterly. There are scenes in that story which have happened in my life. There’s a passage in my first memoir where I’m living in CUS. Physically, I’m still there. But emotionally and intellectually I’ve already left. I’m walking near Leeson St and two priests, pristine in clerical clothes, are walking in one direction and I’m walking in the other direction. It was a metaphor for what was going on in my life. There’s a very similar scene in A Portrait of the Artist where a troop of Christian Brothers are walking across the bridge to Dollymount. And the protagonist is going the opposite way and saying ‘I will forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated consciousness of my race.’ He’s leaving faith, family and fatherland behind.
Patricia Lynam comments that she understands that Ruth helped Joe to save himself: ‘I get your relationship, a wonderful relationship. I understand what you mean by the title and I believe it’s the perfect name for the book. Wonderful books. Congrats.’
PJ Conneely asks about a quotation by Leo Buscaglia favoured by Joe. Joe responds: ‘A lot of my life I chose safety. It seemed safer in the Marists than out there in the big world. I had a university professor in history, Dr Michael Richter, who said to me: “Take your chance in the world.” I was afraid to take my chance but his exhortation struck. I was so often a procrastinator on the fence, so often returning to my habitual field but not being satisfied with it. And then I’m back up on the fence. My worry was, it might hurt. There might be barbed wire in the long grass. That’s why I love that quotation. It resonates with my taking a calculated risk, abandoning safety. And jumping into life.’
Joe concludes the book launch saying that love is all around us, even when we don’t feel it: ‘I’m feeling the love tonight. Thank you for your love.’
The memoir series Losing Religion, Finding Myself explores one man’s journey from his nine-year path towards the Catholic priesthood to happy atheism.
Saved by a Woman, the second book in the series, looks at the six years after he took leave of absence from his priestly studies, his definitive decision not to return to the Marist Fathers, a Catholic congregation of priests; his explorations of his sexuality; his search for his vocation in life, which is to write; and his quest for personal meaning, while outgrowing belief in the Church, God and an afterlife.
It explores, often with clever humour, his time teaching English and Religious Education at St Bonaventure’s Catholic Comprehensive School in the East End of London, and his desire to become a writer. It’s a love story, showing the author’s adventures in love, lovemaking and his eventually finding Ruth, the love of his life; their marriage in England and the birth of their firstborn son; and the biggest and best decision they made together about their future after the birth of their son. The inner dynamics of their good marriage is shared with raw honesty.
Saved by a Woman is published following the critically acclaimed first book in the memoir series In My Gut, I Don’t Believe, which explored the author’s childhood in the Catholic Ireland of the 1960s and 1970s and his nine years as a seminarian in Dublin, Ireland, in the 1980s. Joe Armstrong’s memoirs in his series Leaving Religion, Finding Myself are available on Amazon, in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions.
