By Michael Swan

THE music The Priests sing is as pretty, as comforting, as pleasant as the aroma of fresh baked bread -- or a hug from your grandma. But the clergymen who sing that music grew up in a world that was far from comforting, pleasant or pretty.

"We grew up with 'The Troubles,'" points out Fr. Martin O'Hagen. "The civil rights march passed our house as children on its way towards Derry."

O'Hagen, his brother Fr. Eugene O'Hagen and their boyhood friend Fr. David Delargy grew up in Northern Ireland -- when it was flooded with British troops trying to keep a lid on a dirty war between various Irish Republican Army factions and shadowy Protestant militias, some with connections to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

"We survived. We didn't really live life to the full," Martin told The Catholic Register prior to a jam-packed concert at St. Paul's Basilica in Toronto Decemeber 1.

"We coped with life, because it was a way of life. We didn't know anything else. We were used to being stopped, searched, asked questions. It was a very high security zone, but that was the norm."

So why would three men who grew up in a virtual police state -- with bombings and gun smugglers and entrenched mass unemployment all around -- dedicate themselves to singing old songs in sweet and sonorous close harmonies, backed by lush strings?

"I don't think it's sentimental," said Eugene. Music was the means the O'Hagen's mother used to keep her boys out of trouble -- or more particularly, out of The Troubles.

Through their years in seminary, in Dublin and in Rome, the three men continued to sing: folk music, classical song, opera - and, of course, religious music.

Today the trio, aged between 45 and 49 years old, are all parish priests in Northern Ireland. Unlike the other priests of their diocese, they have a $1.9 million (one million pounds) contract with Sony BMG -- and a CD on the top of the charts.

For The Priests, their music isn't so much sentimental as it represents a culture of life, a culture of love -- the opposite of the police state that surrounded them as children.

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"Music gave life," said Martin. "It enabled life to break through the sombre atmosphere and the difficulties we were facing -- and to bring us hope."

Though Ireland is now changed, having just come out of a period before the economic meltdown when it was known as the Celtic Tiger -- rich, materialistic and increasingly secular -- The Troubles aren't quite the ancient history many think, said Eugene.

"It's been a real roller-coaster with Irish society, particularly in the south," he said. "The north began to share in that within the last five or six years, with peace taking deeper root in society."

In Ballyclare, where Eugene ministers to a small parish in the majority-Protestant County Antrim, the two communities still live separate lives, he said. But music has always been one thing Protestants and Catholics in Ireland share, and the whole community is behind their small-town parish priests.

"We don't have a mandate to fix the problems," said Eugene. "But we can make our contribution to making life a little bit richer."

The sweet songs aren't just an antidote to the divisions of the past. They're also the polar opposite of the materialistic, technology-driven, consumer culture that seems to be Ireland's present, said Martin.

"There's been a real technological boom, and even with all the new ways to communicate we still find it very hard to communicate," he said. Singing old songs, rediscovering the beauty in tunes by Haydn, Schubert and Gounod, is just one form of communication that keeps culture alive, said Martin.

For the trio with the big contract, the thing that draws them to singing is the same thing that drew them to the seminary -- even now. "Instead of making a career of it, we're using it in our priesthood -- and for the greater glory of God," said Eugene.

The Priests were in Toronto on their longest singing tour ever -- all of four days, in which they would also visit Washington, New York and Montreal. Their contract with Sony guarantees they will never be out of their parishes more than three days. "Priesthood is a priority for us," said Martin.

- Courtesy of The Catholic Register. Please do not reprint without permission.

December 5/2008