When I was in Cork last, my father told me about a man called Pulvertaft (great name) who ran a plumbing manufacturing business. Like many of the business owners at the time, Mr. Pulvertaft was a Protestant, a Methodist, in fact. In the Marian Year of 1954 (ever wondered why so many 63 year old Catholic women are called Marian; wonder no longer) the (Catholic) workforce approached the Methodist owner to ask whether they might, in view of the Marian celebrations, erect a statue of the Virgin Mary on the factory floor. He said that they could and, if they stopped effing and blinding the whole time, he’d even pay for it.
