My parents had hit on a way to keep their expression of loyalty to Jesus as simple and unpretentious as possible by the time they got married and moved to Strabane. They took up with fellow-travellers who saw things the same way – the Plymouth Brethren.

This was (and is) a gloriously modest movement of Jesus-followers whose simple approach emanated, not from Plymouth, but from North Wicklow of all places. This simplicity principle seems to have worked since they have poured out an astonishing stream of linguists, public servants, writers, university academics, missionaries, poets and scientists.

The Wilsons didn’t join – nobody “joined”; there was no joining to do. They were never interested in some sort of denominational “signing up”. Their guideline was, “Any friend of Jesus is a friend of ours”.

I’m not sure that Joe and Annie were unnecessarily worried about Plymouth or Wicklow. They just wanted to…