Venerable Matt-Talbot, the Cheerful and Big-Hearted Man was a poor unlettered, unskilled labourer in a dismal Dublin in the last years of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of this century. he was one of thousands who worked hard for a meagre weekly wage and who, with no cultural interest or outlets for relaxation other than the bars, where they spent much, or all, as in Matt's case, of their hard-earned shillings on alcoholic drink. There was no semblance of comparison between the social conditions, especially for the working class, and the glitzy, noisy, highly developed social life in Ireland's capital city today.
Matt Talbot, by Divine Providence, is a man for the modern world, and not merely for people in Ireland with alcoholic problems. His influence is needed in the global village where the loss of the Supernatural and sin is a growing malaise in society.