Denis Lehane: As I was saying to myself yesterday...

Over the past few days I’ve begun to talk to myself.

And it’s the greatest thing I ever started.

Unlike other pastimes and hobbies, where you might have to invest in a pair of runners or some class of a sporting implement, when it comes to talking to yourselfk, you need nothing more than an operational mouth and a good pair of ears.

It’s a right cheap form of fun.

The beauty of talking to yourself is that you can never say the wrong thing.

For ’tis rarely you will have a disagreement with yourself.

You’re always right, unless you feel that you are wrong.

When it comes to talking to yourself, there is no topic too bizarre or outrageous to mention.

You can be as forceful on any point as you damn well like, for you will never put a foot wrong.

No offence will ever be caused.

In a nutshell, there is always a welcome at the door for the man who is anxious to have a quiet word with himself.

It’s the greatest thing of all, I’m telling you. Or at least that is what I have been telling myself, since I started taking up the practice.

With the decimation of rural Ireland, with no post office, garda station or pub left to mention, many of us have been left with little choice but to start this conversation with oneself.

For in many cases, oneself is the only person remaining.

I was only saying it to myself yesterday, as I drove through yet another ghost village, how sad the whole thing has become.

The lack of life and activity in scores of Irish villages would make you cry, if you thought about it too much.

The only thing keeping rural Ireland alive these days to any degree, are the national schools.

Children are bussed in from all corners of the country, even from the suburbs of towns, to attend such educational outposts.

Rural schools, you see, have a great reputation, they have never been so popular, because it is felt that the rural school provides a great environment in which to educate a child.

Which, of course, it does. There is nothing like the country to broaden the mind.

It’s a pity then, that outside the school gate, more hasn’t been done down through the years to ensure the rural village itself stays afloat. For now, with summer holidays having arrived and the children having departed, the closing of the school more or less signals the closing of the village.

How sad it all has become, particularly when, once upon a time, a vibrant rural village was part and parcel of Irish life.

And just when you’d think things couldn’t get any more depressing, I had to laugh (to myself) last week when I heard the news of the appointment of a minister for community and rural affairs. A new post created by the imaginative Leo, and he giving the nod to the two or three individuals remaining in our rural villages.

A minister for rural affairs? What in the name of God is that about? What will this minister have on his desk, will he be checking up on stray dogs or something? Does he not know that affairs of every variety in rural Ireland are about as scarce as stamps and creamy pints.

We have nothing left out here. Sure haven’t we been reduced to talking to ourselves! The minister for rural affairs has arrived 20 years too late. It’s no longer rural affairs, only a sorry state of affairs.