The Irish practise what Nelson Mandela preached
He recognised the sacrifice these people made in travelling thousands of miles to help people they didn’t know.
At Mandela’s memorial service in Soweto, US President Barack Obama spoke about Mandela’s understanding of the ties that bind the human spirit, “his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.”
These characteristics of empathy and giving are strong in us Irish. In the World Giving Index 2012, Ireland was named the most charitable country in Europe, for the second year running, and the second most charitable in the world, after Australia.
Mandela recognised the vital thread each of us plays in the tapestry of another person’s life. Or, as John Donne said in the poem I learned many years ago at school — “No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main...........”
Mandela has many legacies. Surely this must be one of his greatest.
