Neighbourliness - A dreadful warning from Ohio

Ireland of the last century may not have been the best place for someone who cherished their privacy or their time alone to do as they pleased when they pleased.

This was a society where the Catholic Church, the State, or neighbours who imagined themselves helpful but really just felt superior very often crossed the fine line between neighbourliness and unwelcome, bossyintrusion. Very often the postman, certainly the local postmistress acting as a telephone operator, knew what many families had for breakfast, dinner and tea. This almost routine intrusion may be at the root of our national reticence bordering on secrecy and, ultimately, the lack of accountability that so dogs our public life.

Society was, however, made up of labyrinth relationships some of them dysfunctional but the great majority were supportive, well-intentioned, and enriched individuals and communities. In most cases there was usually an uncomplicated, natural concern for the wellbeing of people who lived around you, an idea encapsulated in that wonderful, and, at the moment very pertinent and powerful Irish word: Meitheal.