Fergus Finlay: Thanksgiving Day here? Let’s build three new hospitals instead

It would do us no harm at all to set aside a day a year when we reflect on what we’ve all been through, when we try to generate a sense of greater community — and that day should be February 1, writes Fergus Finlay.

The Thanksgiving Turkey float during the 85th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York on  November 24, 2011. Picture: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

No. No. No. No. No. Not now. Not ever. Never. Not on our watch. Have we no titter of wit at all, not a tiny spark of imagination?

I hope that’s clear, and that you don’t think I’m beating around the bush.

Thanksgiving Day, for heaven’s sake. Haven’t we got enough Americanisms in our lives? Whole generations of young Irish people are growing up with different role models, different expectations, even different speech patterns because of our infatuation with what is laughingly referred to as American culture. Now we’ve decided to adopt their national holiday, evidently because we lack the wit to figure this out for ourselves.

Thanksgiving Day did have meaning in America once upon a time — and it does still for many. It was a time when Americans (who tend not to have much in the way of annual leave) would make their way through thick and thin to be at home with their families.

It was established originally by the Pilgrims, in thanksgiving for the annual harvest. Mind you, I’m betting if you stopped 1,000 Americans in the street somewhere, most of them wouldn’t know that. Nor even what an annual harvest is, nor what crops they’re supposed to be grateful for.

Nowadays it has been entirely exploited. It’s essentially the start of the shopping season. It couldn’t possibly have any traditional meaning left, because it is so unmercifully used as a way of parting people from their money.

We won’t be inundated with a lot of information or advice about this year’s Thanksgiving in the US (November 25), because it has been entirely replaced by two new global phenomena. Family doesn’t matter now — only global commerce does.

Black Friday will happen all over the world — and it will happen to us — the day after Thanksgiving. 

Shoppers wrestle over a television as they compete to purchase retail items on "Black Friday" at an Asda superstore in Wembley, north London November 28, 2014. Picture: REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

If you’ve anything left after that, it will be immediately followed by Cyber Monday. The marketeers are already having a field day getting us ready for these two national “holidays”, which are actually national spending sprees, nothing else.

That perhaps should have been obvious from the very beginning. It was Abraham Lincoln who set the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day, but according to Wikipedia, it was changed to the fourth Thursday by Franklin D Roosevelt, for “business reasons”.

I heard some TD on the radio the other day urging us to have our own Thanksgiving Day — because of the diaspora, don’t you know, and maybe some more Americans will be tempted to come here if we follow their devalued and meaningless traditions. I’m not religious, but all I could think of listening to him was "Holy Sweet Divine".

I’m not opposed to another national public holiday — we’ve never had enough of them. But if we need anything, it’s a memorial day, not a thanksgiving day. It would do us no harm at all to set aside a day a year when we reflect on what we’ve all been through, when we try to generate a sense of greater community, when we mourn the people all over the country who are no longer here with us.

For my money, that should be on February 1. That was always the start of spring in Ireland (I know, Met Éireann doesn’t agree), and it’s also the feast of St Brigid. I know I said I’m not religious, but Brigid was a proud, independent woman whose place in Irish history is secure.

By any measure, it has been women who have carried the lion’s share of the burden of the pandemic over the last two years — mothers, nurses, healthcare workers, childcare assistants. If we owe thanks, it is to them. If we are dedicating a public holiday, it should be to them.

Now let’s talk about the money. I should make it clear that in everything I say next, I’m expressing only my own views and opinions. I work alongside people in the HSE, for example, and nothing I say should be construed as their view. It’s just mine.

So, here’s what I think. If we’re going to give anyone a financial reward because of how tough the pandemic has been, it should be strictly limited to the people who had to put on protective equipment to honour their contracts of employment.

Consultant Dr Eoin O’Sullivan and three nursing colleagues in the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork, on duty during the Covid-19 pandemic and exercising social distancing in the corridor

For day after day, month after month, there were people who put themselves in the way of risk and danger, people who didn’t know what condition they would be in at the end of the day. There were people who were the only ones able to help others who were dying and would have died alone if it weren’t for the hospital and healthcare staff supporting them.

They’re the ones — especially the younger ones and the ones on the lowest pay — to whom we can never repay the debt we owe. They’re the ones for whom no financial reward will be adequate.

But, if I’m being honest, I don’t think it should be about money at all. At least, not that kind of money.

If we want to learn the lessons of the pandemic, if we want to honour healthcare staff who have given so much, if we want to ensure that those who died will not be forgotten, if we really want to equip ourselves for the future, we would build three new hospitals in Ireland. 

We’d put at least 2,000 beds back into the system, and we would begin to future-proof healthcare. We’d reduce the pressure on healthcare professionals and radically improve their career opportunities.

Extra beds are a critical step in the long-term elimination of waiting lists and the development of world-class diagnostics. Above all, it’s a critical step in ensuring that access to healthcare is a right, not a privilege; that it will depend in future on what support you need, not how much is in your bank account. One of the biggest reasons we have hospital queues is that we simply don’t have enough hospital beds. One of the key lessons of the pandemic is that we need to fix that — with new public hospitals.

And again, if I’m being honest, I’d like to see a permanent memorial to everyone who died, to everyone who suffered, to everyone who cared for them. 

If I had my way, I’d find a large accessible public space (I have one in mind, but I’d better not say where), and I’d install both a deep reflective pool and a dramatic fountain.

A reflective pool does what it says on the tin — I’ve seen the one at Ground Zero in New York, and you can’t help but pause and think of the suffering of that day. 

People gather around the NorthTower pool during memorial ceremonies for the twelfth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on lower Manhattan at the World Trade Center site on September 11, 2013 in New York City. Picture: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

There’s a little tiny pool in the grounds of the Chester Beatty Gallery in Dublin to remember all the volunteers from the Special Olympics World Games in 2003 — with their names inscribed beside it — and visiting there stirs emotion every time.

And I’ve seen fountains that bring only excitement and joy to mind. We barely have one in Ireland, but there are wonderful fountains all over Europe, equally spectacular by day and night. Sacrifices made, and something ahead of us to make it worthwhile. 

We need to remember and celebrate. We need both.

If we need anything, it’s a memorial day... For my money, that should be on February 1.