Domesticky

They told us only God could judge.

But here in Ireland, we were never ones for waiting around. If Judgement Day is the grand cosmic reckoning, we’ve spent generations fine-tuning the pre-trial hearings. The priests warned us of an eternal audit, a final moment when our sins would be tallied and weighed – but in reality, the weighing starts long before the afterlife.

In this country, it never stops.

It’s so deeply woven into the fabric of life that nobody even notices.

Judgement isn’t an event – it’s a system, a reflex, a national pastime. We don’t think of it as judgement; we think of it as paying attention.

Faith, Fear, and the Irish Way of Watching

For over 150 years, Ireland’s twin religious traditions—Catholicism and Protestantism—shaped not just how we believed but how we behaved.

Catholicism perfected judgement through shame. You didn’t just fear God’s wrath; you feared your neighbour’s knowing look, your mother’s quiet sigh, the soft but sharp murmurs at the back of Mass.

It was a faith built on social surveillance, where sin wasn’t just between you and God—it was public property. The Church may have controlled the pulpit, but the parish controlled the people.

Protestantism took a different route – judgement through expectation.

You weren’t just meant to avoid moral failure; you were expected to prove your righteousness through hard work, discipline, and quiet endurance. Weakness wasn’t just a flaw – it was a failure of character. If life was hard, well, that was on you.

Two traditions, two different methods. But the result was the same.

Whether by whispered shame or rigid scrutiny, the rules of belonging were enforced. Your community was both your judge and jury, and the safest way to live was to stay inside the invisible lines.

And so, we watched. We measured. We weighed people against impossible standards, not because we were cruel but because that’s how it’s always been done.

The Pulpit is Gone—The Judgement Remains

Fast forward to now. The Church has lost its grip, the pews are emptying, and religious dogma is fading. And yet, the instinct to judge, condemn, and correct hasn’t gone anywhere.

Because while the priest may no longer be dictating morality from the altar, Twitter will happily take over.

The confessional has been swapped for the group chat, the church pew for the comments section.

We may not believe in eternal damnation the way we used to, but we’ve built a new kind of Hell: a world where your mistakes live forever online, where reputations are erased in an instant, and where the idea of forgiveness is as outdated as Mass in Latin.

Cancel culture? Public shaming? The crushing weight of social scrutiny? None of that is new to us. We invented the art of quiet condemnation. The only difference now is that the whispers don’t just echo through small towns and parish halls—they spread at the speed of WiFi.

Judgement Day Was Never a Future Event—It’s Every Single Day

We tell ourselves we’ve moved on, that we’re freer now, that Ireland has thrown off the chains of religious fear. But have we?

We still measure each other, still police behaviour, still decide – collectively, ruthlessly – who is in and who is out. We still live with the shadow of unseen eyes, with the weight of imagined opinions, with the constant pressure to perform acceptability.

So no need to wait for Judgement Day, it’s the day and the morrow and the day after that. For eternity.