Irish Examiner view: Deaths remind us of our own mortality

From the perpetual grief of death in Gaza to the tragedies visited upon families closer to home, each loss reminds us of the tenuous grasp we have on dear life

there was a horrifying account this week of the death of Munster rugby coach Greig Oliver. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Confected news has been displaced this week by the awfulness of human tragedy. In Gaza, that perpetual source of grief afflicting the conscience of the world, people drowned while retrieving aid packages that had fallen into the Mediterranean.

In Baltimore, Maryland, a 1,000ft-long container ship lost power and drifted into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it like it was matchwood.

Mercifully, the accident took place in the middle of the night, minimising the number of fatalities. The bridge, which opened in 1977, carried 12.5m vehicles last year and is a major link on the Baltimore beltway across the Patapsco River.

The city has close connections to Ireland. It was the primary port of call for many escaping the potato famine and in 1880 25% of the population was Irish. The modern metropolis was immortalised in the huge HBO series The Wire.

Here at home, it has been a dreadful seven days, with Tuesday’s death of a mother and her two young daughters on the N17 at Castlegar, near Claremorris, Co Mayo, bringing to 52 the number killed on Ireland’s roads so far this year.

The next day, a man in his 20s died in a collision involving a car and a lorry in Co Roscommon.

Our country has the third-highest deaths on rural roads in Europe. Traffic speed is increasing here, while it is declining elsewhere. Something is not computing and we are not trying hard enough to find the answer.

The randomness of death is a reminder of the tenuousness of our time on Earth, and how the odds can switch against us instantly.

There was a horrifying account this week of the investigation into the death last year of the Munster rugby coach Greig Oliver in a paraglider crash in Table Mountain national park in Cape Town, South Africa.

Some of the interaction between the pilot and the passenger was relayed in harrowing comments captured on the action camera.

The instructor deployed the emergency parachute, which inflated before they hit the water and released his own harness and swam back to safety.

But Mr Oliver was unable to free himself and was swamped by the weight of the chute and rigging.

It is a grim story, and one cannot listen to it without huge sympathy for the Oliver family, and despair at what happened.

There has been a great increase in recent decades of interest in extreme sports or white-knuckle experiences, for the adrenaline surge, from swimming with sharks to bungee jumping, from white-water rafting to taking the black run in skiing.

Normally, the thrill is the reward. Normally, you can rely on the expert who is accompanying you.

But systems fail, and so do people. No pursuit is entirely without risk. The occasions when something goes tragically wrong reinforce our collective sense of mortality.

The hell that is other people

There was something Beckettian about the way Eric Cantona, once the wild man of soccer, now a much-loved cultural icon, responded when he was forced to speak to journalists.

That was nearly 30 years ago after the Man United star kung-fu kicked an abusive Crystal Palace fan at Selhurst Park on a winter evening in January 1995.

Manchester United's Eric Cantona is restrained after lunging at a Crystal Palace fan in the stand at Selhurst Park after being sent off during a Premier League match on January 25, 1995. Picture: AFP/Getty

It was a game that many contemporary characters will remember. Roy Keane was there (on a yellow after 28 minutes). Gareth Southgate equalised for the Londoners late on.

But his attack on a supporter as he made his way to the dressing room after being red-carded was the stuff of legend. There were calls for a lifelong ban. A two-week prison sentence was reduced to community service on appeal. He was eventually suspended from the game for eight months.

He was forced to explain himself at a press conference upon his return and illuminated it with a Delphic observation delivered in the same tones he uses now for his beer ads. Looking around a packed press conference he said: 

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.

No one knew what he meant. And neither did he. 

He told a French TV chat show this week that it was the first thing that came into his head. It secured his reputation as a philosopher king. It was, he said, his revenge on the press. 

“L’enfer, c’est les autres,” or “Hell is other people,” said Jean-Paul Sartre. 

For Cantona, purgatory was journalists. He couldn’t say what he really believed... he wished he’d kicked the fan harder.

Easter messages from politicians

If you are a politician, Easter is a good time to reflect on the message you want to get across. And the priorities that need to be established to resolve the country’s great challenges.

For Simon Harris, now that the ‘shock and awe’ campaign — a phrase which may quickly appear unsuitably bellicose — is over, new markers are being laid. Sooner or later, they will be picked up and exposed to interrogation.

The major announcement of this week was Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman’s plan to expand provision for international protection applicants by ramping up building-and-buying programmes.

Mr Harris says Ireland needs to move beyond “an emergency response”, which is recognition in itself that the requirement to provide aid and assistance for asylum seekers is ongoing, systemic, and a consequence of the treaties we have entered into, albeit in different times.

Some 14,000 State-owned beds for international protection applicants by 2028 appears an ambitious target. It would quadruple what is currently available.

While it acknowledges that relying on the private sector to provide shelter in a perma-crisis is bound to fail, it does not address the elephant in the room: What happens if we are underestimating demand while simultaneously falling short on providing homes for the domestic market, for Irish taxpayers?

This is a potentially explosive situation, which is unlikely to be wholly mitigated by opting into the EU asylum-and-migration pact, and the solidarity mechanism for countries to make financial contributions.

One demonstrator carried a placard through Dublin that proclaimed: “This is not a migrant problem. It is a housing problem.” Thus far, critics may conclude that little enough has been done on the supply side to defuse the potential sources of conflict in this tendentious issue.

Another of the pre-Easter messages that necessitated a double take was contained in the draft ‘Moving Together’ transport strategy, which goes out for public consultation in April.

While it was opaque on whether the Government liked, or didn’t like, congestion charges — a probable vote-loser — it simultaneously hopes to protect town centres, which are already collapsing for a number of reasons, should such charges be introduced.

Local authorities could be given the power to bring in parking charges in industrial estates and retail parks, the document says.

“It will be important that out-of-town retail parks and industrial zones will not enjoy any beneficial fallout from congestion charging in urban centres.”

This looks greatly like Boris Johnson’s policy on cake (“pro having it and pro eating it”) and the document is full of worthy objectives, long-familiar arguments, and wishful thinking.

Perhaps the public feedback will put some edge into it.

There are a whole number of other outstanding issues — drugs reform, crime, the troubled hate-speech bill, health, and, of course, Mr Harris’s view on whether, and when, there is to be a pandemic inquiry. But perhaps immigration, housing, and environment are a tall enough order to start. Monday brings another month and the second quarter.