HERE'S A book I know I have to read. But I have been putting it off. The 234-page volume has been sitting untouched, smouldering on the bedside locker. Its unopened presence is a reproach while I dilly-dally with more trivial entertainment.

There is no real excuse for putting this slice of non-fiction on the long finger. It's just that sectarianism and bigotry make for daunting subject matter.

Author Tim Fanning did not attempt to come up with a flowery title as he put a name to his 234-page piece of non-fiction. 'The Fethard-onSea Boycott' it is called with unsentimental succinctness.

And it is a look back to a County Wexford that is practically unrecognisable. Let us hope that it is a Wexford irreversibly confined to the vaults of past history.

When the film-makers trained their cameras on the Fethard of Seán and Sheila Cloney, they gave their 1999 movie a title that had just a hint of Hollywood.

'A Love Divided' was no piece of schmaltz, however, but an instructive and uplifting tale. It put Seán and Sheila Cloney right up there as a reallife Romeo and Juliet as far as I was concerned.

They may never have had a balcony on which to play their love scenes. But at least they survived, where Shakespeare's star-cross'd pair both perish before the final curtain of their play.

The story of Seán and Sheila is instructive, inspirational and enduringly romantic – though it is a romance without a hint of saccharine. They emerged from a pummelling by the forces of organised religion as a sane and dignified couple.

There is a strong case for introducing every school-goer in the county to the tale of the Cloneys as a caution against chauvinism and narrow-mindedness. So why be so reluctant to dip a toe back in the curdled waters of the late 1950s, to open 'The Fethard-on-Sea Boycott'?

It is just that the episode that made unwilling heroes of the Cloneys is a reminder of times that had a deeply unpleasant side to them. When Sheila (the Protestant half of the mixed marriage) brought her young daughter to be educated in the faith of her forebears, she stirred up a ferocious, vindictive hornets' nest.

It is unimaginable nowadays that the Catholic clergy in Fethard would see this as justification for boycotting everything to do with the other persuasion. The involvement of Ian Paisley – one of the most divisive and meddlesome personalities of contemporary Ireland – added to the perplexity of the narrative.

It all harks back to a time when people of one faith would be reluctant to attend the funerals of friends from the other camp for fear of being damned or picked upon. The last hint of such prejudices was, surely, wiped away by Mary McAleese when a Catholic President accepted the invitation to take Holy Communion at the Anglican rail of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Last Christmas, I sat in among a congregation in a Church of Ireland church where at least half those present were either partners in mixed marriages or the product of mixed marriages. I feel almost ashamed to have noticed that this was the case because it was not really a cause for any remark, except in the context of comparing the Ireland of the new millennium with that of 1957.

Last week, the Enniscorthy Guardian carried a picture of a smiling Archdeacon Chris Long, seen sitting shoulder to shoulder in Christian fellowship with Bishop Denis Brennan. The occasion was the ceremony of Confirmation at the diocesan cathedral for pupils of St. Aidan's (Catholic) parish primary school, and the Church of Ireland priest did not look out of place.

Let anyone who still carries some misbegotten torch for the attitudes that fuelled the Fethard boycott look at that photograph and realise that they have lost the fight. The traditional churches in the Ireland of today have much more in common than they have driving them apart, though the finer points of theology may still be contested in the schools of divinity.

As a reporter, I occasionally contact parents to compile reports on christenings, noting the family connections and the venue for the party following the gathering at the font. Sometimes, out of devilment, I ask the name of the priest who made the sign of the cross on the baby's head. More often than not, the mother or father has no idea of the reverend's identity.

The churches realise that they must spend more time battling to retain the faith of those who are still nominally on their books than warring with the other crowd.

Having got that off my chest, perhaps now it is time to take a saunter down a haunted memory lane and open Tim Fanning's book.