Olunkunle’s school pals prove that the true Irish spirit is still alive

“A CROWD of us was going along the Shepherds Bush Road when out of a lane came a chap with a donkey — just the sort of donkey and just the sort of cart they have at home,” Michael Collins explained, recalling his days in London.

"He came out quite suddenly and abruptly and we all cheered him. Nobody who has not been in exile will understand me, but I stand for that."

There are certain things about this country that people do not appreciate until they have been abroad for a while. The first difference I noticed after spending almost two years in United States during the mid-1960s was the number of priests and nuns in the Aer Lingus waiting area at Kennedy Airport.

I had already travelled extensively in the United States and became accustomed to the number of servicemen travelling in uniform. This was the height of the Vietnam War and there was always a tremendous number of soldiers, sailors, air men or marines.

But there was none in the Aer Lingus lounge the only passengers in uniform were priests and nuns. We were not sending soldiers to conquer anyone, but we did have a veritable army abroad trying to educate the children and to help the people of the Third World.

In time, the sacrifices of those people will reflect more glory and honour on Ireland than any military conquest could ever have done.

In previous centuries many Irish people went abroad to serve in armies on the continent. Some distinguished themselves, though I doubt that any made contributions as valuable as so many priests, nuns and brothers serving in deprived areas of the Third World. It was not so long ago that Irish parents were very proud to have priests and nuns in the family.

The sacrifices those people made have been greatly undervalued and distorted in recent years by the paedophile scandals that have rocked the Church.

But that is grossly unfair to the overwhelming number of people who sacrificed so much to help others.

Some trendy twits may ridicule as "do-gooders" those who made the sacrifices. This is merely adding insult to what has been the greatest betrayal in Irish history. Those people were not betrayed so much by the paedophiles in their midst as by their own authorities who were so concerned about their elevated places in society that they covered up the misbehaviour of the paedophiles and recklessly moved them to unsuspecting communities where they offended all over again.

The paedophiles were always a tiny minority. They were sick, but their illness was stoked rather than treated. Some offenders were moved from public view into orphanages. It was like moving alcoholics into a pub.

Blinded by their own pomposity, those Church authorities betrayed those sick people, along with all of the genuine people who served so magnificently. What happened, however, should not blind us to the reality that nobody should be ashamed of our missionaries. The overwhelming majority were people of whom any generation should be proud.

On Monday, when we reflect on what this country has achieved since independence, there should be no doubt that Ireland's greatest contribution in the international field has been made by our missionaries. A considerable proportion of them went to Nigeria, and it is probably a tribute to them that more than one-third of the people who have been seeking asylum in this country have come from Nigeria. They probably heard glowing accounts about Ireland from their teachers, and they have turned to this country in their hour of need, just as millions of Irish people turned to other countries over the centuries.

Many of the Nigerians are well educated, but they have been barred from working here, and then some demented demagogues accuse them of sponging off the state.

How many of those who looked for our help now feel betrayed, and are justified in feeling so? Times have changed and there are no longer the numbers of vocations for the missions that there were 40 or 50 years ago. But that does not mean Irish people no longer care.

Our people contributed €75 million towards relief for victims of the St Stephen's Day tsunami. That amounted to almost €20 for every person in the country, as compared with to €6.70 per person in Britain and €1.90 in the United States.

THE initial response of our Government was a pathetic reflection on the generosity of those that they were elected to represent. Since then we have had a further pathetic example in the case of Olunkunle Eluhanla, the Nigerian Leaving Certificate student who was deported last week.

For some days the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, tried to defend the deportation.

"Just because you're young doesn't mean you aren't deported," he said. "An Irish person going to America in similar circumstances would be back on the next plane and would never see the inside of an American school," he said.

The first part of his argument sounded dangerously like the modern equivalent of saying that just because Kevin Barry was young did not mean he should not have been executed. The minister then drew an absurd and insulting analogy suggesting that the Americans would give an Irish student in similar circumstances the bum's rush by deporting him even faster. That was as distorted as it insulting to the Americans.

For generations, our people found succour in the United States where the authorities have bent over backwards to facilitate illegal Irish emigrants. People may not always agree with America's foreign policy in relation to other countries, but we must admit that Irish people have enjoyed favourable treatment over generations.

For the Minister for Justice to suggest that the Americans would have treated an Irish student with more callous indifference than his department treated Eluhanla was grossly insulting to the United States. It was also an insult to Irish people to assume they would be so gullible as to swallow that argument.

But in fairness to the minister, he recognised he was in a hole, and he stopped digging, reversed the deportation order, and made arrangements to bring Eluhanla back so that he can sit the Leaving Cert.

What prompted his U-turn? Was it the protest launched outside the Dáil by Eluhanla's fellow students at Palmerstown Community College? In the midst of all the talk about the yob culture and binge drinking, it was positively refreshing to see so many young people supporting Eluhanla. It is further proof that the spirit of Christian generosity is still strong among Irish people.

The minister finally backed down after the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, spoke out against the deportation. Some people may feel he should have stayed out of the controversy, but this would really have been another betrayal of all those who made such sacrifices in going to Nigeria. Dr Martin's measured sentiments were a refreshing contrast to the pronouncements of some of his predecessors. Even though the bold Michael McDowell can be as pompous and as arrogant as any bishop ever was, he exhibited an attractive humility in backing down this week. He should try it more often, and reflect again on some of the other cases so callously mishandled.