Time for a careful choice

MEASURING contributions to society is like counting hairs on a wriggling cat very hard to know which end to start from and not a precise process no matter where you begin.

To one person, there has been no more important contributor to Irish life than he who signed the contract for the Portlaoise bypass.

The farmer who watches juggernauts trundle by where his praties once grew might take a different view.

From one perspective, the abolition of corporal punishment represented a new era in enlightenment and appreciation for human rights.

From another, it heralded the onset of generations of undisciplined young thugs with hotlines to personal injuries lawyers.

Depending on your viewpoint, Louis Walsh is either the creative genius who gifted the world Ronan Keating, filled the stratosphere with sweet sounds and set 20 million hearts a-flutter, or an underworld fiend who killed music.

Three quarters of a century ago, the Government set itself a formidable task when it began work on the Ardnacrusha hydro-electric power scheme.

A planeload of German engineers, a fair whack of imagination and a lot of measuring tapes took care of construction.

The difficulty was convincing the nation that this monstrosity on the revered Shannon would light up the entire country.

Even a populace still grasping the rudiments of electrical theory knew you weren't supposed to mix power currents with the watery kind.

There were also grave doubts that a light bulb switched on from top of a turbine in County Clare would emit sufficient wattage to read a paper by in Donegal.

Still, the Electricity Supply Board was set up, the venture was completed, the country was illuminated.

Last week, it even belatedly won an international award previously bestowed on the colour television and space shuttle.

Now, in honour of their 75 years a-glowing, the ESB has embarked on an equally large task to identify and honour the person who has made the most important contribution to Irish life in that period.

The award will be a once-only honour and announced in November as part of the annual Rehab People of the Year Awards, which the ESB sponsors.

Previous recipients of the annual awards have included Mary Robinson, George Mitchell, Gay Byrne and Sophia McColgan.

The 75th anniversary award may be a little harder to decide. Few memories span three quarters of a century.

But the public has until the end of next month to come up with nominations which can be made in writing to Rehab or via an online nomination form at www.rehab.ie

Nominees must be alive, which rules out heavyweights like de Valera, Donough "free education" O'Malley or Dr Noel Browne, who might have been in for a posthumous award.

Apart from this rule, the field is wide open and as the award is not to be repeated until 2079, it is worth considering carefully nominations.

Politicians and leaders will undoubtedly form many of the nominations, but serious thought must be given to people like Margaret Best, who fought the State and pharmaceutical giant Wellcome in the tireless belief that her son Kenneth was brain-damaged by his three-in-one vaccine.

Or people like the O'Hanrahans, who battled chemical manufacturer Merck Sharp & Dohme after they and their farm animals became ill mysteriously.

Their victories were personal but stood as lasting testament to the power of ordinary people and to the fact that the law exists for everyone, not just for those who have millions in the bank and a full-time legal department.

Businesspeople like Denis O'Brien and Michael O'Leary can split the nation with Roy Keane-like aplomb, but their "think big" mottos and their challenges to State monopolies, and to the view that only foreign industries can be big employers, have helped change attitudes to entrepreneurship in Ireland.

Nominees from the literary world could include Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel or Roddy Doyle, who have kept alive the tradition of fine Irish writing at a time when the homogeneity of mass-produced culture threatens to turn the arts into one endlessly-repeating four-second MTV promo.

The entertainment industry could also put a few names in lights. The wobbling walls of Dinny's cardboard cottage didn't detract from the fact that writer, Wesley Burrowes, opened up issues surrounding society and relationships through his creations, The Riordans, Bracken and Glenroe, beginning at a time when the country was hovering tenuously between its conservative past and the tempting but scary liberalism of the future.

Joe Dolan would be a worthy nominee for being outrageous in a white suit when people were still tut-tutting over Elvis, and for still taking the stage 200 times a year four decades later and doing Robbie Williams covers with credibility, proving age is only relevant to NCT inspectors.

Gillian Bowler popularised package holidays and opened up a world beyond Ballybunion, Mary Raftery made States of Fear and began one of the greatest closet-clearing exercises the country has ever gone through, Maureen O'Hara made Irish sexy before a Riverdancer ever kicked her lithe legs in the air and Gerry Daly calmed us all down with mosspeat and hyacinth bulbs when the Celtic Tiger frenzy began.

Each in their own way has contributed something memorable to Irish life.