Strange turns on the road to redemption

WITH all due respect to your columnist Steven King’s sceptical demythologising of the Northern Executive’s head honchos (January 16), the two old political cons (Paisley and McGuinness) have surprised more than themselves on their road to Damascus.

Or, perhaps, that should be the road to Buxton on the way to Zihuatanejo on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It’s often a strange road, right enough, the road to redemption.

But listen to this slice of narrative from Frank Darabont’s spellbinder ... “There’s a big hayfield up near Buxton ... one in particular. It’s got a long rock wall, a big oak tree at the north end. It’s like something out of a Robert Frost poem ... “Promise me, Red. If you ever get out, find that spot. In the base of that wall you’ll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. A piece of black, volcanic glass. There’s something under it I want you to have ...”

That “something” may not have been the pearl of great price.

But it certainly was Red’s ticket to freedom, a long bus ride away from prison and the memories of a seemingly wasted life.

You’ve guessed it, of course. I’m talking about what happens when two old political cons are surprised by life and the prospect of ‘rehabilitation’.

The film is the Shawshank Redemption. The writer? None other than another brilliant Stephen King, naturally.

“His judgment cometh. And that right soon.”

Richard Dowling

Patrick Street

Mountrath

Co Laois