{"id":924674,"date":"2026-08-04T10:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/04\/dad-was-such-a-hardened-born-again-christian-it-took-time-for-me-to-accept-i-didnt-believe-in-god\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T10:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:14:07","slug":"dad-was-such-a-hardened-born-again-christian-it-took-time-for-me-to-accept-i-didnt-believe-in-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/04\/dad-was-such-a-hardened-born-again-christian-it-took-time-for-me-to-accept-i-didnt-believe-in-god\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Dad was such a hardened Born Again Christian \u2014 it took time for me to accept I didn\u2019t believe in God&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<article data-id=\"41876732\" data-puid=\"102\" data-statistic-type=\"0\">\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/\">Homepage<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/lifestyle\/\">Lifestyle<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/lifestyle\/people\/\">People<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span title=\"Subscriber\">Subscriber<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Clem Cairns, co-founder of West Cork Literary Festival, talks to Helen O\u2019Callaghan about how he had a great childhood but his strict moral upbringing led him to be deeply suspicious of anything evangelical so he instead embraced commonsense over ideology<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"'Dad was such a hardened Born Again Christian \u2014 it took time for me to accept I didn\u2019t believe in God'\" alt=\"Clem Cairns, co-founder of West Cork Literary Festival.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/cms_media\/module_img\/10299\/5149808_14_org_a714671f-3fab-48fc-8479-11fcecdf1200.jpg\" fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\"  ><figcaption>\n<p>Clem Cairns, co-founder of West Cork Literary Festival.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Fri, 10 Jul, 2026 &#8211; 22:00<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><story><\/p>\n<p class>My father was a very proselytising, evangelical person who liked to influence. He loved preaching. He was a keen member of the Church of Ireland growing up, but when I was a child, the church we went to was 12C off Lower Abbey Street.<\/p>\n<p>I remember it as a most extreme Baptist church \u2014 big open pit at the front, you could lift up the floorboards and fully immerse the person being baptised.<\/p>\n<div id=\"paywall-premium\" data-promotion-name=\"Clubber Offer\" data-creative-name=\"Metered_ClubberOffer_SubContent_Int_Anon\" data-user-persona data-paywall-status=\"soa\" data-event-category=\"paywall\">\n<div id=\"limit-header\">\n<p><span> This is exclusive subscriber content.<\/span><span> Already a subscriber? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/login\/\">Sign in<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"https:\/\/subscribe.irishexaminer.com\/sites\/default\/files\/2026-07\/clubber%20irishexaminer_0.png\">\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<h2 id=\"limit-title\" data-event-label=\"Every Match. Every Story.\">Every Match. Every Story.<\/h2>\n<p>One Ultimate Bundle<\/p>\n<p> <i>No obligation. 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Delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"form-22\">\n<div>\n<h3><b>Lifestyle<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>Newsletter<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/cms_media\/module_img\/5661\/2830680_1_org_IE_logo_white.png\" width=\"100\" height=\"11\" alt=\"IE-logo\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Eat better, live well and stay inspired with the Irish Examiner\u2019s food, health, entertainment, travel and lifestyle coverage. Delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> Irishexaminer.com<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/lifestyle\/people\/arid-41876732.html\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Homepage Lifestyle People Subscriber Clem Cairns, co-founder of West Cork Literary Festival, talks to Helen O\u2019Callaghan about how he had a great childhood but his strict moral upbringing led him to be deeply suspicious of anything evangelical so he instead embraced commonsense over ideology Clem Cairns, co-founder of West Cork Literary Festival. Fri, 10 Jul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":924675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26601,151465],"tags":[5292,151464],"class_list":["post-924674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-again","category-hardened","tag-again","tag-hardened"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}