(1) A large number of participants in the 1916 Rising had been taught by the Christian Brothers or some other order, and belonged to religious societies, particularly the highly influential Sacred Heart sodality .(2) The main duty now is to organise the collection of contributions which are used for Masses for both deceased and the living members of the sodality , and also to support church funds.(3) We all had to assemble in the school on a Sunday morning with our white sashes, and join with all the other schools and sodalities for Benediction on the steps of St. Patrick's College.(4) In the ‘good old days’, all one needed to get a crowd out on the streets on a religious holiday was a call to the head of the men's and ladies' sodalities .(5) By 1965 the sodalities were clearly on the wane, a fact which in the opinion of the bishop and the prior was largely due to the advent of television.
