The antidote to Joyce, Trevor, McCourt, et al.

Finished the collection of European Short Stories (published in about 1970) that I've been dipping into over the past few months w/ story by Irish writer Frank O'Connor, First Communion. I don't know much about O'Connor, seems his stories turned up from time to time in the NYer and in various anthologies - from this selection I can see why. He's the antidote to the dark Irish fiction (and memoirs), a tradition that stretches at least from Joyce through Trevor to McCourt, with homage along the way to Edna O'Brien and many others. O'Connor, judging from this story alone, has the wit and turns of phrase, the insouciance toward extreme poverty, the ambivalence toward the Church, the tangled web of family so characteristic of the national literature, but what sets this story apart is that the young boy - 7-year-old going under duress to his first communion, fearful of confessing his loathing for his grandmother who favors his bossy older sister and who has in various ways disrupted family life since moving in after her widowhood - actually tells his confession to a wise and sympathetic priest who uses the occasion to give good counsel and to help the boy feel better about himself and his family. The boy confesses to wanting to kill the grandmother, for ex., and the priest comes back w/ "But where would you put the body?" And he confesses to going after his sister w/ a breadknife, to which the priest opines that there will be plenty of people coming after her with a breadknife soon enough. With his humor he helps the young boy feel that his urges are not sinful but natural and in effect harmless, that he will grow out of them, he will grow up. Albeit, the priest is maybe a little too indifferent to the pent-up rage, but it's also clear that he sees these urges are nothing but passing illusions and that the best course of action is to befriend the child and welcome him. A very sweet story, well out of fashion these days but refreshing to come across.