Week ending December 31st 2013
New Year, new hope. No troika. Baby steps before we walk. Walk before we run, but thankfully there has been good news on the jobs front in recent times. Things seem to be looking up with more than a thousand real jobs being created every week, as well as training and part-time jobs. Here in Carna there are a few new jobs in fish farming and in the seaweed factory in Cill Chiaráin, both of which create peripheral jobs in services and the harvesting and gathering of seaweed. Again baby steps, a long way from the time when two hundred or more were involved in this work, but a harbinger of hope for those at home as well as the hundreds who have emigrated. While there is an air of “good riddance” involved in our “slán” to the troika, they have brought a discipline and a political realism to our body politic which should be retained for the sake of competiveness.
Every New Year I make the point that there is one thing sure about political, economic and social predictions, and that is that most of them will be wrong. Life will take its usual twists and turns and surprise us. A year ago I was recommending to our legislators to be brave when dealing with the fallout from the X-case of the early nineties: “One of the big decisions right now is dealing with the question of limited abortion when the life of mother or child is at stake... Right now I have more confidence in the Government in this regard than leaders of my own church seem to have. Our elected leaders have to legislate for all of society and until I hear otherwise I expect them to be balanced and fair. Thin end of the wedge or end of the world as we know it scenarios are of little help. This Government has shown more courage in facing up to this question than predecessors did in the past couple of decades. Coinnigí bhur misneach – Be brave.” They were. Well done.
New Year, new book. I love writing that. The English version of an Irish language novel published two years ago: “I gCóngar I gCéin” (Cló Iar-Chonnacht) is now available from AuthorHouse. It can be ordered directly from them by ‘googling’ the name of the book or the publisher. It is also available through Amazon, Waterstones or directly from myself (pstandun@eircom.net) Some bookstores have shown interest and I am awaiting a follow up. E-book and Kindle versions are available too, and it is great to be able to reach out far beyond our own shores, and see adverts in languages I do not even recognise. The Irish version was shortlisted for “Leabhar na bliana” the Gaelic “book of the year” in 2012, and even though it did not win it was a boost for my little ego to have it up there with the best.
The recent death of Nelson Mandela brought back memories of the first time I became aware of him and the anti-apartheid struggle in the late sixties of the last century. As students in Maynooth at the time a number of us used to travel out to picket the Landsdowne Road rugby headquarters to protest against an all-white Springbok team coming to play Ireland. Standing in the picket lines then with the likes of Tomás MacGiolla, Mairín De Búrca and Kader Asmal, later a Minister in Nelson Mandela’s first government, there was little hope then of an end to the apartheid regime. Mandiba had still more than twenty years to serve in prison at that stage before his release, but I am glad to have been there on the pavement when his “long walk to freedom” was little more than a dream. I still remember one of the wittiest placards I have ever seen, which protested in the part played by the Irish Rugby Football Union in bringing the all-white Springboks to Dublin - “IRFU – FU”
Happy New Year
Every New Year I make the point that there is one thing sure about political, economic and social predictions, and that is that most of them will be wrong. Life will take its usual twists and turns and surprise us. A year ago I was recommending to our legislators to be brave when dealing with the fallout from the X-case of the early nineties: “One of the big decisions right now is dealing with the question of limited abortion when the life of mother or child is at stake... Right now I have more confidence in the Government in this regard than leaders of my own church seem to have. Our elected leaders have to legislate for all of society and until I hear otherwise I expect them to be balanced and fair. Thin end of the wedge or end of the world as we know it scenarios are of little help. This Government has shown more courage in facing up to this question than predecessors did in the past couple of decades. Coinnigí bhur misneach – Be brave.” They were. Well done.
New Year, new book. I love writing that. The English version of an Irish language novel published two years ago: “I gCóngar I gCéin” (Cló Iar-Chonnacht) is now available from AuthorHouse. It can be ordered directly from them by ‘googling’ the name of the book or the publisher. It is also available through Amazon, Waterstones or directly from myself (pstandun@eircom.net) Some bookstores have shown interest and I am awaiting a follow up. E-book and Kindle versions are available too, and it is great to be able to reach out far beyond our own shores, and see adverts in languages I do not even recognise. The Irish version was shortlisted for “Leabhar na bliana” the Gaelic “book of the year” in 2012, and even though it did not win it was a boost for my little ego to have it up there with the best.
The recent death of Nelson Mandela brought back memories of the first time I became aware of him and the anti-apartheid struggle in the late sixties of the last century. As students in Maynooth at the time a number of us used to travel out to picket the Landsdowne Road rugby headquarters to protest against an all-white Springbok team coming to play Ireland. Standing in the picket lines then with the likes of Tomás MacGiolla, Mairín De Búrca and Kader Asmal, later a Minister in Nelson Mandela’s first government, there was little hope then of an end to the apartheid regime. Mandiba had still more than twenty years to serve in prison at that stage before his release, but I am glad to have been there on the pavement when his “long walk to freedom” was little more than a dream. I still remember one of the wittiest placards I have ever seen, which protested in the part played by the Irish Rugby Football Union in bringing the all-white Springboks to Dublin - “IRFU – FU”
Happy New Year
Week ending December 24th 2013
Santa Claus and I go back a long way. Back at least until the middle of the last century. The centre of the world then, or my world at least, was a house on a rounded drumlin hill in the middle of a village called Ballydavock, about halfway between Clogher and Belcarra. Electricity or radio had not yet reached us, but fair play to Santa, he knew where we were, and he made his deliveries in good times and bad. The first time I remember nearly getting a glimpse of him was on a frosty night in which stars shone as bright as Bethlehem. Our father, lanthern in hand, led us three children to the barn in which he gave an extra helping of hay to the two cows and a number of calves tied there in their stalls. The barn was always a lovely warm place, where you could almost live yourself, apart from the smell of manure. A graip was then used to pull away the droppings that had accumulated behind the animals. Clean straw was spread beneath them and the work was done for that day.
As we made our way back slowly to the house my father announced excitedly: “There goes Santa’s sleigh.” We had barely time to catch a glimpse of it as it flashed across the sky like a shooting star. Sure enough it was Santa alright. The presents were there to meet us when we got back to the house. He must have slipped down the chimney while our mother was in the scullery collecting the Christmas cake for the supper. The evening meal on Christmas Eve was the main meal for the feast at that stage. There would be a goose or a big chicken on Christmas Day, but the most important part of the festival was the evening before. The table would be carefully set, with a big red candle in the centre, and the beautifully iced cake which we all craved, nearby. A prayer would be said for the living and the dead. Our father then took the tongs from beside the open fire and broke a lighted sod of turf on the hearth. This was a symbolic breaking of the devil’s back in another faraway fire, as the baby Jesus came among us to break the power of evil.
“Things rested so,” as Éamonn Kelly used to say when we did get a radio. The years rolled slowly on. Christmasses came and went, and then one year didn’t Santa actually come to our front door while we were there finishing the supper. There was a loud knocking which was almost scary. The man himself seemed even scarier when he came in as he talked very loudly and laughed a lot. Our mother and father laughed along with him, and chatted away as if they had known him all their lives, so that put us at our ease. I can still see the little cap guns which emerged from Santa’s suitcase and were the heart’s desire of almost every boy at the time, guns which fired with noise like that made by the sixguns that cowboys used in the pictures we got to see now and again in what is now a funeral home in Balla. I still wonder how we did not set fire to all the hay in the hayshed the following day as the caps sparked and spluttered in a gunfight as intense as that in the OK corral.
Our sister Mary, the youngest, turned out to be the most observant. “Wasn’t Santa’s suitcase just like the one under mammy and daddy’s bed,” she observed. We hadn’t time to wonder. Gunfights were waiting to be fought.
A very happy and peaceful Christmas to all “Connaught” readers.
As we made our way back slowly to the house my father announced excitedly: “There goes Santa’s sleigh.” We had barely time to catch a glimpse of it as it flashed across the sky like a shooting star. Sure enough it was Santa alright. The presents were there to meet us when we got back to the house. He must have slipped down the chimney while our mother was in the scullery collecting the Christmas cake for the supper. The evening meal on Christmas Eve was the main meal for the feast at that stage. There would be a goose or a big chicken on Christmas Day, but the most important part of the festival was the evening before. The table would be carefully set, with a big red candle in the centre, and the beautifully iced cake which we all craved, nearby. A prayer would be said for the living and the dead. Our father then took the tongs from beside the open fire and broke a lighted sod of turf on the hearth. This was a symbolic breaking of the devil’s back in another faraway fire, as the baby Jesus came among us to break the power of evil.
“Things rested so,” as Éamonn Kelly used to say when we did get a radio. The years rolled slowly on. Christmasses came and went, and then one year didn’t Santa actually come to our front door while we were there finishing the supper. There was a loud knocking which was almost scary. The man himself seemed even scarier when he came in as he talked very loudly and laughed a lot. Our mother and father laughed along with him, and chatted away as if they had known him all their lives, so that put us at our ease. I can still see the little cap guns which emerged from Santa’s suitcase and were the heart’s desire of almost every boy at the time, guns which fired with noise like that made by the sixguns that cowboys used in the pictures we got to see now and again in what is now a funeral home in Balla. I still wonder how we did not set fire to all the hay in the hayshed the following day as the caps sparked and spluttered in a gunfight as intense as that in the OK corral.
Our sister Mary, the youngest, turned out to be the most observant. “Wasn’t Santa’s suitcase just like the one under mammy and daddy’s bed,” she observed. We hadn’t time to wonder. Gunfights were waiting to be fought.
A very happy and peaceful Christmas to all “Connaught” readers.
Week ending December 17th 2013
Every now and again a couple of days come one after another in which a person wonders when will it be possible to again sit down and take it easy. I had a couple of such days recently on the first Thursday and Friday of December, with the usual beginning of the month’s visit to the old, sick and housebound. A wedding ceremony for a couple with local connections in Galway on the Friday meant a hundred mile return journey to and from Galway twice for the rehearsal and the wedding. Add in the usual daily Masses in both sides of the parish and we are talking busy times. A touch of flu didn’t help but the flu injection seems to have done the trick. My biggest crisis was a visit from the dog warden searching for my dog licence. My millennium born dog had reached thirteen years of age without a licence, but the law had caught up with us at last. The warden was kind and understanding and he gave me ten days to get the matter sorted. Needless to say Mocca, the dog has an extra pep in her step ever since.
It is time to begin to concentrate on Christmas. Once again we struggle along the rocky road to Bethlehem. The donkey picks its steps carefully, as if conscious of the importance of its load. Mary and Joseph are happy to be away from the prying eyes of Nazareth. The gossip mongers had a field day when innocent little holy Mary began to show signs of her pregnancy. When was Joseph going to do the right thing and marry her? ‘Wasn’t he the dark horse all the same, and you would think that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.’ That’s if he was the father. Rumour had it that Joseph and herself had never been together. If not, who was the father? Where was DNA when you needed it? ‘Fair play to Joseph all the same. He was sticking by her.
Here they were on their adventure far from home, enjoying the fresh air and the company of the people they met around the oases and watering holes, or at the open fires when they stopped for something to eat. They were returning to Joseph’s roots, going back for the census, a once in a lifetime event, a kind of pilgrimage to the past, back to the King David connection from centuries before that his people had always talked about. What was it about royalty that so many people wanted to be connected to? Anyway that was then and this is now. This baby was likely to come into the world far from home. They were ready for that. They wouldn’t be sleeping under the stars that night. They had the money for an Inn, tightly wrapped in a little handkerchief in the very middle of the swaddling clothes that Mary had brought with her to put around the baby as soon as it was born and washed.
Was it all a dream? Mary wondered sometimes. This baby from out of the blue. This baby from God as that vision had told her all of nine months ago. Could it have been some kind of a hallucination? The baby that had grown within her was real enough. But God? Why me? What was God up to? If he was as great as people said couldn’t he have found a less complicated way to send his son into the world. Couldn’t he have just dropped him into some palace where he would have a bit of comfort. Why had he to go natural way, the full nine months, the birth? ‘He must be a glutton for punishment,’ she smiles to herself, worried, apprehensive and happy, all at the same time.’
Joseph tells himself that people must think that he is a right eejit, but he wouldn’t want it any other way. He trusts Mary. If she says this is a child of God, that is enough for him. He is not too sure what ‘child of God’ means, but if it is of God, sure it has to be good. He finds it hard to understand why Mary is so sure that her baby is going to be a boy. That’s what God’s messenger told her, apparently. Does that mean she will be disappointed if it turns out to be a girl? Whichever it is they are going to love it. And if it is a girl, what harm will it do her to know a bit of carpentry?
It’s a win/win situation.
It is time to begin to concentrate on Christmas. Once again we struggle along the rocky road to Bethlehem. The donkey picks its steps carefully, as if conscious of the importance of its load. Mary and Joseph are happy to be away from the prying eyes of Nazareth. The gossip mongers had a field day when innocent little holy Mary began to show signs of her pregnancy. When was Joseph going to do the right thing and marry her? ‘Wasn’t he the dark horse all the same, and you would think that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.’ That’s if he was the father. Rumour had it that Joseph and herself had never been together. If not, who was the father? Where was DNA when you needed it? ‘Fair play to Joseph all the same. He was sticking by her.
Here they were on their adventure far from home, enjoying the fresh air and the company of the people they met around the oases and watering holes, or at the open fires when they stopped for something to eat. They were returning to Joseph’s roots, going back for the census, a once in a lifetime event, a kind of pilgrimage to the past, back to the King David connection from centuries before that his people had always talked about. What was it about royalty that so many people wanted to be connected to? Anyway that was then and this is now. This baby was likely to come into the world far from home. They were ready for that. They wouldn’t be sleeping under the stars that night. They had the money for an Inn, tightly wrapped in a little handkerchief in the very middle of the swaddling clothes that Mary had brought with her to put around the baby as soon as it was born and washed.
Was it all a dream? Mary wondered sometimes. This baby from out of the blue. This baby from God as that vision had told her all of nine months ago. Could it have been some kind of a hallucination? The baby that had grown within her was real enough. But God? Why me? What was God up to? If he was as great as people said couldn’t he have found a less complicated way to send his son into the world. Couldn’t he have just dropped him into some palace where he would have a bit of comfort. Why had he to go natural way, the full nine months, the birth? ‘He must be a glutton for punishment,’ she smiles to herself, worried, apprehensive and happy, all at the same time.’
Joseph tells himself that people must think that he is a right eejit, but he wouldn’t want it any other way. He trusts Mary. If she says this is a child of God, that is enough for him. He is not too sure what ‘child of God’ means, but if it is of God, sure it has to be good. He finds it hard to understand why Mary is so sure that her baby is going to be a boy. That’s what God’s messenger told her, apparently. Does that mean she will be disappointed if it turns out to be a girl? Whichever it is they are going to love it. And if it is a girl, what harm will it do her to know a bit of carpentry?
It’s a win/win situation.
Week ending December10th 2013
It came as a bit of a shock to a traditionalist like myself to find the 8th of December was on the 9th this year. Well it wasn’t really, but many in the Roman Catholic church celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Monday, giving precedence to the second Sunday of Advent on Sunday. For me the 8th of December remained the 8th of December, one of the great feasts of Our Lady. In the meantime Advent has plenty of time to celebrate itself in preparation for Christmas. Purple is the colour of Advent in church circles. Advent is a kind of mini-Lent, a time to reflect on how things are between God and ourselves, as well as between us and our neighbour as we approach the feast of the birth of our Saviour. I just wonder is there a bit of a colour clash between my white head and my deeply purple over clothes. Perhaps a touch of colour in the hair might add to the season, a little henna maybe, though this may lead to the eternal question being paraphrased: “Which came first, the henna or the eggs?”
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of Christmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened in recent weeks. Many stores at least waited until Halloween was over before showering us with Christmas goods and music. It will take considerable discernment and discipline not to buy the things we don’t need, but the recession has taught us that we don’t need to have everything. “May you always have enough,” was an old wish or prayer that might serve us well in these harsh times. We don’t need everything as in celtic tiger times, but it sure helps to have enough
In recent years the depth of the recession has led me to welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas or any other feast or festival that is likely to put as much money as possible into pockets that need it. While many people like to observe their Sabbath, whether that is on Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to a person’s religion, I think the priority in recessionary times is for people to feed themselves and their families. Jesus himself got into trouble with the authorities of his own religion for breaking the Sabbath in order to do good, to heal people in his case. The flexibility that comes from observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law was one of the astute lessons taught us by the man the baby Jesus was to become in later life.
One of the great attributes Pope Francis has brought us in his seven months or so in office is the ability to relax about some of the issues that had almost become defining aspects of Catholicism, while putting the emphasis on the poor and the marginalised as the birth in Bethlehem did a couple of millennia ago. Jesus too preached and practised a fairly relaxed form of religion, as I understand it from the Gospels. It was not as if he was without principle, as shown by his willingness to die for what, or because of what he believed in. He did not make big issues of little things, make mountains from molehills. He knew what was and what was not important. During Advent it would be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Let our own little lullaby to baby Jesus this Christmas recognise his later fairly relaxed attitude to law and to life.
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of Christmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened in recent weeks. Many stores at least waited until Halloween was over before showering us with Christmas goods and music. It will take considerable discernment and discipline not to buy the things we don’t need, but the recession has taught us that we don’t need to have everything. “May you always have enough,” was an old wish or prayer that might serve us well in these harsh times. We don’t need everything as in celtic tiger times, but it sure helps to have enough
In recent years the depth of the recession has led me to welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas or any other feast or festival that is likely to put as much money as possible into pockets that need it. While many people like to observe their Sabbath, whether that is on Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to a person’s religion, I think the priority in recessionary times is for people to feed themselves and their families. Jesus himself got into trouble with the authorities of his own religion for breaking the Sabbath in order to do good, to heal people in his case. The flexibility that comes from observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law was one of the astute lessons taught us by the man the baby Jesus was to become in later life.
One of the great attributes Pope Francis has brought us in his seven months or so in office is the ability to relax about some of the issues that had almost become defining aspects of Catholicism, while putting the emphasis on the poor and the marginalised as the birth in Bethlehem did a couple of millennia ago. Jesus too preached and practised a fairly relaxed form of religion, as I understand it from the Gospels. It was not as if he was without principle, as shown by his willingness to die for what, or because of what he believed in. He did not make big issues of little things, make mountains from molehills. He knew what was and what was not important. During Advent it would be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Let our own little lullaby to baby Jesus this Christmas recognise his later fairly relaxed attitude to law and to life.
Week ending December 3rd 2013
The best marketing ploy I have seen recently is the Aldi advert for Christmas cake, in which a man is having a slice of his favourite cake “after coming in from Midnight Mass.” The German company is ahead of the posse of generally politically correct advertisers who act as if religion plays no part in Irish life. Aldi has cottoned on to the fact that four million or more people are likely to attend Mass for Christmas. What are the odds of them having a slice of cake when they go home? What are the odds of them thinking that this company is actually clued into Irish life? “More Irish than the Irish themselves,” as the Normans and English used to say about themselves eight centuries ago. Angela Merkel would be proud of them. In the tradition of Marie Antoinette she might say: “Let them eat Christmas cake,” or in thanksgiving for our exit from the bailout: “Let them have their German porter-cake and eat it.”
Angela seems proud too of the Irish Government’s decision to grasp political sovereignty with both hands as the troika bailout is exited without a backstop. For some this is seen as comparable to leaving a flying aircraft without a parachute, or trying to negotiate a certain creek without a paddle. For the sake of the country I wish our leaders well, but suggest that they do not become too self-congratulatory. The decision was announced in a week in which we found that Cross-care, the Dublin Catholic Archdiocese’s welfare organisation was running out of food parcels, in many cases parcels for the new poor. Demands on the Saint Vincent De Paul Society for food and other help have doubled. The cutbacks due essentially to out of control lending by most of our Banks are cutting deep, and despite our return to ‘sovereignty’ this Christmas will be a cold place for many families.
The same week saw people reach deep into their pockets to contribute to the Trócaire appeal for the people of Syria and the Philipines, those displaced by war in the case of Syria and Typhoon Haiyan in the Pacific Islands. The depth of suffering in both places has touched many hearts. It is good to see pubs and bands here in Conamara putting on fundraising nights for the people of the Philipines as I am sure is happening in many other places as well. The relatively quick response to the typhoon by some American battleships may have more to do with the strategic military importance of the country, but nobody can complain about help arriving quickly. The rebuilding of the devastated parts of the country as well as the rebuilding of people’s lives will take much longer. Many Irish people have a soft spot in their hearts for that part of the world because of Columban missionaries and their monthly magazine “The Far East,” not to speak of the many nurses that have come to our hospitals and nursing homes from those faraway islands.
Trócaire, Crosscare and the Saint Vincent De Paul society, the caring face of Roman Catholicism, have distinguished themselves in recent weeks. It is not that any of them is self-seeking or praise seeking, but their contributions at home and abroad should be acknowledged, as well as the work of our Department of Foreign Affairs and other agencies. Tragedies locally or anywhere in the world tend to bring out the best in people. Well done to all concerned.
Angela seems proud too of the Irish Government’s decision to grasp political sovereignty with both hands as the troika bailout is exited without a backstop. For some this is seen as comparable to leaving a flying aircraft without a parachute, or trying to negotiate a certain creek without a paddle. For the sake of the country I wish our leaders well, but suggest that they do not become too self-congratulatory. The decision was announced in a week in which we found that Cross-care, the Dublin Catholic Archdiocese’s welfare organisation was running out of food parcels, in many cases parcels for the new poor. Demands on the Saint Vincent De Paul Society for food and other help have doubled. The cutbacks due essentially to out of control lending by most of our Banks are cutting deep, and despite our return to ‘sovereignty’ this Christmas will be a cold place for many families.
The same week saw people reach deep into their pockets to contribute to the Trócaire appeal for the people of Syria and the Philipines, those displaced by war in the case of Syria and Typhoon Haiyan in the Pacific Islands. The depth of suffering in both places has touched many hearts. It is good to see pubs and bands here in Conamara putting on fundraising nights for the people of the Philipines as I am sure is happening in many other places as well. The relatively quick response to the typhoon by some American battleships may have more to do with the strategic military importance of the country, but nobody can complain about help arriving quickly. The rebuilding of the devastated parts of the country as well as the rebuilding of people’s lives will take much longer. Many Irish people have a soft spot in their hearts for that part of the world because of Columban missionaries and their monthly magazine “The Far East,” not to speak of the many nurses that have come to our hospitals and nursing homes from those faraway islands.
Trócaire, Crosscare and the Saint Vincent De Paul society, the caring face of Roman Catholicism, have distinguished themselves in recent weeks. It is not that any of them is self-seeking or praise seeking, but their contributions at home and abroad should be acknowledged, as well as the work of our Department of Foreign Affairs and other agencies. Tragedies locally or anywhere in the world tend to bring out the best in people. Well done to all concerned.
