Much like with Donald Trump’s inauguration, try as many of the crawthumpers in our midst might, there was no point in lying about the numbers in the Phoenix Park when His Alleged Holiness turned up for an oul’ mass. We all saw the pictures; the large, empty spaces and green grass where, in 1979, one million worshippers had stood. Of the expected 500,000, an estimated 135,000 made the trek out to see the pontiff. More people had turned out to see Ed Sheeran in May.

Pope Francis was met with a changed Ireland. This was no more evident than in the protestations of former President, Mary McAleese, in the lead up to his visit. McAleese condemned the World Meeting of Families (happening the same weekend as the Phoenix Park Mass) as a ‘right-wing rally” and characterised the Catholic Church as “an empire of misogyny”. As a mother of a gay-rights activist son, Justin McAleese, the former head of state appealed to the Pope to address the church’s “disappointing” stance on women priests and “evil” teachings on homosexuality, and accused him of putting the defence of the Catholic Church ahead of victims of the clerical sexual abuse scandal.

Our suggestion is that she should do the sensible thing and leave.