Roll out our green carpet to the world
If it is a fact that we Irish, especially this week, have a global monopoly on all the forty shades of green.
So why not turn that to our advantage immediately?
If we are known as the scenic Emerald Isle all over the world, especially around Saint Patrick’s Day, why the hell do we persist in rolling out red carpets under the feet of the high and mighty visitors who will begin to arrive here in droves for the upcoming summer?
Get rid of the red carpets of protocol, I say, and replace them with green carpets in all or any of those 40 emerald shades.
That bold and imaginative move would generate many positive consequences for sure.
The pure truth yet again.
The Pope is due in Ireland shortly.
Donald Trump is likely to arrive at Shannon at some stage, to view his Co Clare golf resort, and tweet that he loves us all to bits.
The British prime minister, above all others, should be required to enter via an independent and republican green carpet, any time she comes to call.
The message generated through the soles of the shoes of the high and mighty would be subtly very powerful, indeed.
And never more timely than now, for a host of reasons.
The level of international concern about the state of the environment is increasing by the day.
It is a hard fact that the poles are melting at a shocking pace, that there are all sorts of impacts on the ozone layer above us, and the oceans are heavily polluted by plastic products which endanger fish stocks.
Even on this island, we are being battered by more and more wicked storms, and our coastline is being eroded and flooded.
Great tracts of the wider world are experiencing either major droughts or hurricanes and blizzards even worse than the late Emma!
Our green welcoming carpets would signal both our awareness of the environmental situation, and a willingness to join worthwhile programmes to combat the threats to the welfare of our childrens’ children.
Above and beyond that, our green carpets would signal strongly that though we are an element of the EU in this complex Brexit situation, we are also a sturdy and prospering republic that walks its own walk, and talks its own talk, as it always has done since we almost totally rejected and ejected John Bull and his cohorts a century ago.
Our green carpets, also, embellishing the gray and ugly airport tarmac, would send an early message about the untarnished and pure environment and striking scenery throughout the land that awaits the eyes of all visitors. Surely another pure emerald truth there.
I have learned a little about the history of those red carpets which nations roll out, to observe the frequently quite ridiculous protocols surrounding the arrivals and departures of the world’s high and mighty.
They have been around for a very long time indeed.
It seems the first of them were being rolled out as long ago as three centuries before the birth of Christ, mainly in Greece.
It also appears that the first mention of them, again from Greece, indicates that a vindictive wife, who wished to settle a score with her husband, laid one down for him to walk upon when visiting.
That wise man refused on the grounds, he said, that red carpets [back then] were believed to be walked upon only by the Greek gods, and he would not risk life and limb by moving above his station.
We won’t see too many of our empowered modern visitors adopting that course, for sure!
There is another element involved, I think.
Red is a colour somehow associated with fascist warlike nations, and fascism generally.
Maybe it is sadly apt it is also the colour of the dreadful bloodshed which these nations inflict on their neighbours, including tiny children, even as you are reading this.
Green, on the other hand, is a colour which represents peace and the beauty of both nature and the humans who people the land.
It is the colour associated with growth and life, and hopefully brighter and better times ahead.
Attaching it to our carpets of welcome everywhere along the island would also favourably impact on international headlines in this digital media age.
It would certainly boost tourism revenues.
Most of us will never walk the existing red carpets of protocol, that is true, but perhaps if somebody in authority reads this and takes the appropriate action, they might consider it right and fitting to invite Cormac to walk along a green carpet (with no hard borders!) next time he is flying into Shannon Airport.
Sadly, I don’t think that is likely to happen anytime soon.
In the meantime all of you are wished a serene and happy Saint Patrick’s Day.
