Fergus Finlay: We must take opportunity to consider the merit and meaning of Paddy's Day
'I know there is a lot of people, especially in events and entertainment, who will suffer again this year for the want of the kind of platform that Paddy’s Day offers. But I also think we should rethink the entire meaning of the celebration." Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie
I don’t know whether I’m previous or late. I want to wish you a happy Mother’s Day and a happy St Patrick’s Day, and I’m stuck slap bang in the middle of both of them.
There was a lot of Mother’s Day going on all around me at the weekend. Our daughters (I suppose I should really say my wife’s daughters) collaborated to put together a box of goodies which had to be secretly collected (no 5k rules broken) and hidden in the boot of my car until the morning of the big day. Hand-made cards arrived from some grandchildren, and a box of hand-made chocolates — hand-made by other clever grandchildren — was handed in at our door on Sunday afternoon.
There’s a huge unbreakable bond between my missus and her daughters and, if it’s possible, maybe even a stronger one between her and her grandchildren. So Mother’s Day has always been a bit special in our house — even in lockdown.
I felt it slightly differently this year. On the one hand, I think we’re a lucky family, because of the strength of their relationships and the respect in which all those women hold each other and are held. What strikes me about all of them (the women I know best) is that they insist on respect — on giving it and earning it. It’s not respect for what they have, but respect for who they are. It’s immensely valuable.
All the more so because I’ve been writing a lot lately, for one reason or another, about the opposite. About the shameful way in which women have been treated throughout history and right up to recent times.
I’ve been really struck by the reaction those columns have received. I don’t know if I’ve ever had more reaction than I had to the one I wrote last week, arising from the RTÉ programme about the practice of stealing babies from their unmarried mothers and falsifying their birth papers — thus stealing their identities from them.
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In response, a musician and songwriter called John Buckley McQuaid sent me some of his music. I hadn’t heard of him so I looked him up. He’s Irish but lives abroad now. He writes passionately and movingly about some of the same issues I’ve been writing about. Here’s a verse from one of his songs called “Girls who lived in hell”, about the Magdalene Laundries:
If you look at the hundreds of comments and reactions I got to that column alone, I think you could come to the conclusion that there are still two conversations going on in Ireland. There is still an awful lot of “whataboutery”, an irrepressible desire to deflect attention from any discussion of the things we did or were done in our name — especially to women and to children.
But I think there is also a growing determination to confront the past and to change the future. On International Women’s Day last week, the National Women’s Council highlighted the experiences of women with disabilities and women in Direct Provision. The only conclusion you could come to, listening to the podcasts involved, is that changing the future still involves a huge amount of work. And a lot of honest appraisals.
And maybe the same is true in relation to Patrick’s Day and all it means.
So again, if I’m being honest, I’m kind of glad that we have to pause this year. I know there is a lot of people, especially in events and entertainment, who will suffer again this year for the want of the kind of platform that Paddy’s Day offers. But I also think there would be considerable merit in taking the opportunity to rethink the entire meaning of the celebration.
We started locking down around Patrick’s Day last year. I expressed the hope here at the time that “I’d love to think that the memories of this period will be nostalgic rather than bitter. That we’ll only remember a couple of weeks of self-isolation, after a burst of panic-buying. We’ll feel a bit foolish, maybe, every time we think back to the mountains of rolls of toilet paper piled up all over the house. But sure we only did what we had to do to get through the virus.”
But I also said that “it’s much more likely, isn’t it, that we will all look back and remember this as one of those moments when the world changed, never to be the same again. By the time we have passed the peak of this virus that has attacked the entire planet, all of us will be scarred to some extent.” None of us knew then — how could we? — that a year later nearly a quarter of a million people would have contracted the virus, and that more than 4,500 of our loved ones would have died. We hadn’t a clue how painful it was going to be for families and communities who had to endure bleak partings, watching a mum or dad die alone, unable to celebrate life and death in the way we always have. We didn’t know — indeed we’re still finding out — how damaging the virus is even among those who recover from its initial attack.
And we hadn’t a clue that a year later our economy, which was growing strong when the virus landed, would take such a hit, or that so many people would have to depend on state support rather than their own jobs. Or that so many people, maybe young people especially, would have to put their lives on hold, that a lot of the sense of fun and adventure that goes hand in hand with being young would disappear.
In the year between one Paddy’s Day and the next, I think it’s fair to say that we have changed utterly. We’ve learned a lot of lessons, but we’re also frustrated, angry, and bitter at what’s happened to us. We started off thinking it would only last for a few weeks, and now we’re wondering if it will ever end. Especially when you hear breaking news about more delays in the supply of vaccines, you find yourself wondering what did we ever to do deserve this.
But there’s been another side to it. We’ve seen heroism at every level of our healthcare system. We’ve seen people putting themselves at risk for us. Despite whatever mistakes we’ve made we’ve managed this pandemic as well as any country in the world, and better than most.
We’ve had good reasons for all the emotions — the frustration and anger as well as the pride. And we’ve stuck together brilliantly. So, maybe it’s all right to wish ourselves a Happy Saint Patrick’s Day this year. And hopefully — hopefully! — by next Paddy’s Day the pandemic will be a fading memory.
