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AT A BRIEFING last week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar quoted C.S Lewis – “everyone’s a bit scared but we’re a little less scared together”.
He added that kids who are currently out of school and away from their friends could do worse than to read the Chronicles of Narnia, and certainly a book that opens with children being evacuated from wartime London feels timely with all the talk of ‘Blitz spirit’ lately.
And there are echoes of Narnia’s curse – to have constant winter without Christmas – right now as we endure an indefinite Good Friday with pubs, cinemas and other meeting places forced to close.
While Lewis’s native Belfast was subject to German air raids in World War II, Blitz spirit – the idea of a community coming together to stoically weather out a challenge – is not mentioned in the context of that city.
There are probably dozens of reasons for this. So where do we look when seeking a reassuring symbol of enduring together that is more relevant to Ireland?
Perhaps language is a good place to start.
Both in the way that we have re-engineered global English into something that better fits our particular attitude to life and in the way that Gaeilge has lived long enough to complain about grammatical errors in its many obituaries, language keeps a record of how we remember, endure and hope together.
The words we hold closest to us in tough times have been warmed by that embrace, and the words we discarded in a hurried escape, when found again, tell stories of what has been lost and what might be found again.
I think of the throwaway phrase: “sure, look it”. Although these look like English words, this combination is unknown beyond these shores.
While hard to define exactly, something like “that’s disappointing and you’re not wrong, but even though the world isn’t fair and we don’t always get our way, there are still some good options and you have good friends who like you” isn’t too far off.
But when it comes to Irish, I think of something else.
A recurring theme I’ve found in Irish is the wealth of exquisite homonyms – words that sound so similar that you can’t help wondering if the meanings are linked.
It’s a language that gives its poets a head start – whether it’s gardaí chasing gadaí (cops chasing robbers) or your name sounding like your soul (ainm and anam), or the way tax sounds like weeping (cáin and caoin) or a wanderer sounds like a teardrop (deoraí and deoir), ideas which go awfully together take shelter under the same phonetic umbrella in Irish.
One of my favourite of these homonyms is how returning and poet, filleadh and file (both sound like fillah), go together.
Although we have been pushed apart from each other, we will return and return again and it will be the stuff of poetry when grandparents hug their grandchildren and colleagues give out about their bosses over coffee and we overhear conversations on our way to meet our friends again. I know this because Gaeilge told me so.
Finally, as this is my last piece for TheJournal.ie for a while, I’d like to finish up by saying the Irish for goodbye is an all-too apt wish of good health to the one you are saying farewell to. Slán leat.
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These people are known to authorities yet they still roam free? Should all known potential terrorists and their families and friends just be rounded up and deported? It would free up plenty of social housing and save tax payers money.
Deported where? He was British.
@Ted Logan: he wasn’t British
@KingBen: are you aware of what it costs the taxpayer to monitor even one person? It’s completely unfeasible for them to keep all potential terrorists under surveillance.
@KingBen: A person born Adrian Elms (or Russell or some variation thereon) born in the County of Kent in England. To where are you proposing to deport “these people”? I don’t think the Australians are still accepting convict ships. Have you a proposal to make or is that just ignorant and uninformed prejudice?
@Ted Logan: Germany are about to deport two German born men to their parents place of birth, Algeria and Nigeria!
@Ted Logan:.. if these people are extreme threat to ireland or any other country in Europe i don’t care where they send too or what happens to them their. all i care about is the safety of my family and friends and ireland and Europe which is paramount ..
@Terry McClatchey: deport him to whichever country to which he identifies himself with, maybe Morocco for example? I don’t care really but one thing is for sure he didn’t add any value to the lives of British people so why keep his like there? That OK with you and your lefty liberal feminist views?
@Ted Logan: His nationality is British according to reports but you have to love a country, respect it’s heritage and customs and most importantly you have no need to kill your fellow country men before you can claim the right to quote your nationality. Until you have looked into the eyes of a lone wolf, you will not see hatred based on twisted hatred. A lone wolf has no religious believes not alone on a bizarre ancient and dangerous cult.
@Ted Logan: of dual nationality Germany are sending back two German born citizens to Algeria where their parents come from . This is the measures that is forced on us by these terrorists
I’ll never understand how some people bite the hand that feeds them. Reminds me of the frog and the scorpion….. It’s in their nature.
@Alan Kennedy: Or maybe he is being told that everyone around him is a bigot and racist by people looking to influence individuals such as this terrorist into action.
@James Guinan: I always had a sense of right and wrong.Are you making excuses for this man full of evil and hatred?
@James Guinan: If the think as you suggest there are perfect alternatives to migrate to such awful countries, find one that shares your twisted religious beliefs if you will let you in. Not trusting a religion who hates you because you don’t share their view is NOT racist, it is an understanding what Sharia law wants to do with unbelievers when the time (and the population) is in your favour. If you have children have a good look at sharia and an examine of The Q book and learn what your bleeding heart is trying to achieve. If I don’t want child brides (low as 8), if I cannot stand the idea of girls being have their genitals multilayer or when they grow up to be beaten if they disobey their husbands then that sees me as a bigot in your mind but that won’t allow me to give an inch to sharia.
@Alan Kennedy: How is suggesting that individuals might be giving him a reason to kill others justifying his action? What a stupid assertion.
@Jho Harris: What are you on about with migration? I am refering to our medias in the west constantly on about how awful the west is and all the islamaphobia they claim we constantly produce. On top of islamist preachers advocating for action in name of their horrible religion. How can you not understand such a simple comment?
@James Guinan: Badly worded original comment James.
@Alan Kennedy: How so? On review of it, it says exactly what I intended to say as concisely as possible. Maybe don’t assume everyone is an Islamist apologising progressive.
@James Guinan: there can be little doubt that the flames of anger are stoked by others, possibly those that converted him.
@Dave O Keeffe: I agree and I would speculate that it is not merely just stoking of those who converted him, but also an environment which lead him to be converted, in regards to the main stream media perpetuating false notions of rampant hatred, racism and various phobias. Not to mention how evil we are and complicite in the actions of the military and political figure ideolouges.
@James Guinan: the flames are also stoked by those that actually do wonder about their daily lives threatening anyone that looks foreign. Remember the post Brexit postcards that people got in their letterboxes?
Another unstable person has been manipulated by the isis internet cult and has committed multiple murders using mundanely legal weapons. The usual purpose of these type of attacks is to scare the general population into hating a minority and thereby force vulnerable members of that minority already on the fringes of society into the recruitment of the terrorists. London will keep a stiff upper lip, ignore the minuscule minority of terrorists and get on with things, and so should the rest of us.
Wishy washy words
@George Roche:
Great insight there george, thanks for adding to the debate
We should be reading about the victims not inadvertently glorifying this fcuk wit!
Looks like the Californian three strikes and you’re out has unforseen benefits.
At least one of them in Ireland is being deported
@lez ferguson: the man’s British. There’s nowhere to deport him to.
@lez ferguson: I’ll believe it when it happens.
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