The priest and the pop star - a heroic partnership

The wonderful thing about human life is that it comes with the inbuilt ability to rise above oneself and one's fears.

- SATISH KUMAR SHARMA

This facility is the seed from which grows the shrub of fearlessness on which, the flower of courage blooms. It is, therefore, our greatest weapon against evil, for it thrives on fear.

If the destiny had run its full course, Hugh O'Flaherty, would have been a challenger to the golf legend Bobby Jones, for as a teenager living on a golf course in Ireland, where his father worked as a steward, he had achieved scratch handicap. But in the amateur era of the early 20th Century, serious sport was a rich men's indulgence. So, O'Flaherty became a Roman Catholic priest. That was in 1925.

Elsewhere in Ireland, Delia Murphy, the daughter of a wealthy Klondike (Canada) Gold Rush prospector, completed her education and, in 1924, got married to an Irish diplomat Thomas Kiernan - both defying their parents. She was a singer of musical ballads who drew from Ireland's folk traditions, wrote her own ballads and became so popular that she is regarded as Ireland's first pop star.