Positive answers to voices from the past

The past spoke loudly this week reminding us all that we are no more than a culmination of circumstances, some noble others less so, some fortuitous others contrived.

In Normandy yesterday one of the great milestones on the road to our modern world was marked when the 70th anniversary of the Allies’ D Day landings in France were celebrated. That so few of the 1944 veterans were able to attend shows that even if the past can from time to time speak loudly the passage of time does its work silently. This may be the last major anniversary of this great act of liberation attended by a significant number of participants. Their legacy is such though that as long as Europe remains at peace, remains tolerant and united they will be remembered with great pride and deserved thanks.

Much closer to home, and far, far closer to the bone, the revelations around the deaths and mass burial of hundreds of infants and children in a Tuam mother-and-baby home — around 800 bodies in a septic tank — cannot but provoke comparisons with the evil the D Day landings ultimately brought to an end. That there may other mass graves like the one at Tuam adds to that deeply uncomfortable fear.