A retired Irish cop told me his great Uncle Nace never wore socks during the last four decades of his life. It was many years before the cop figured out why. Here’s what he told me:

There’d been a rumor that his young Uncle Nace had killed a man in a fistfight behind a neighborhood bar. Nace was never a suspect in the case, but he left town during the investigation and was neither seen nor heard from again for more than 25 years. One day Uncle Nace reappeared from out of nowhere and returned to his family. He was never connected to the old, still unsolved, murder.

Uncle Nace was not wearing socks when he came back to his family, and he never wore socks until the day he died. "It was an old Irish priest that set me to wondering," said the retired cop. "If somebody confesses to a priest that he’s committed a crime, that information is privileged and cannot be repeated to anyone for any reason."

In Ireland during the turn of the century, when priests learned of a capital crime, some would prescribe an unusual penance such as: "You may never again wear socks-never-for as long as you shall live."

A strange penance? Today shoe leather is soft. Back then shoe leather was rough and hard. To go sockless in the old days meant rubbing raw spots on your feet. Not just for a while-but for the rest of your life!

Did Uncle Nace kill somebody? My Irish cop friend doesn’t really know. But he does know that Uncle Nace went without socks for the last forty plus years of his life.

Perhaps this was penance given by a wise Irish priest. Every step Uncle Nace took-for as many years as he lived-was a constant and painful reminder of a terrible sin he’d committed as a young man.