It is so true that the first casualty in war is the truth. The eight years of conflict in Ukraine, now escalated to a punishing military assault by Russia, is a testimony to the blame-game oratory from all sides. The ordinary people of the world are trapped as horrified and helpless spectators to the death, pain, and destruction of our fellow human beings in Ukraine.
While the western media and government’s clamour to praise Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the conduct of this war, others like myself wonder why no one has challenged him for leading the country to this terrible devastation.
Do we replace pragmatic diplomacy and engagement with acting skills and nationalistic rhetoric?
I also condemn Russian president Vladimir Putin for invading the sovereignty of Ukraine (Britain, US, Nato, etc are also serial invaders but they never get sanctioned or condemned).
Russia and Ukraine must seek dialogue and de-escalation over conflict to end the terrible suffering of innocent people.
The war in Ukraine has clearly shown the double standards of western powers when they so easily ignore or minimise the suffering of helpless people and refugees if they come from an Arab, Asian, African, or South American nation. It is disgusting that, with so much poverty and humanitarian need in our world, the major powers can spend trillions on circulating weapons of destruction just to maintain their supremacy.
It is time for true global intermediaries to step in and help end this war in Ukraine (and all wars). We need to create a fairer world where truth, justice, and equality reign over ignorance, greed, and intolerance.
Glory always to God and peace.
Michael Hagan
Dunmurry
Co Antrim
Time to ring the bells for peace
Poignant, emotional, and inspiring are the overwhelming feelings provoked by the heroic Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he addressed the Dáil last week. Cataloguing the harrowing atrocities being visited on his country and its people, he cut an astoundingly compelling figure of resilience, fortitude, and defiance against the odds, pleading for further urgent support in a dire scenario.
The Ukrainian travesty of daily death and destruction in a democratically
independent state being attacked under fallacious and vicious pretexts behoves us all to be aware and continuously attend to the shock and awe pertaining.
Many people in Ireland have already pledged support and continue to contribute generously with fundraising and welcoming hospitality gestures, which are so impressive.
However, there’s something about the daily reportage of the events in Ukraine that can leave one flummoxed as to what to do in the ongoing conflict, trying to ensure that we sustain the ‘apocalyptic’ gravity of the situation in our minds and hearts, rather than becoming somewhat inured to the persisting reality, and unwittingly dwindling our mindfulness of the awfulness of this criminal war on an innocent people.
Last month, there was a call for all Cork churches to ring out their bells in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, highlighting our protests against the war by exhorting those in positions of power to exercise their influence and governance humanely. It was an idea that should be revisited and regalvanised by inviting all churches and across the country to ring out their bells daily at 6pm for two minutes, so as to echo again and again our communal solidarity against the daily travesty unfolding in Ukraine.
As many churches as possible could engage so as to potently remind us, as communal citizens living in a safe and secure peace, of the terrors abounding elsewhere.
Such a ‘ringing out’ can keep the struggle for peace alive, and not let time dull our collective senses.
All churches of all denominations can thus coalesce a common spirit of
humane empathy, with a repeat resonance of a beaming soundscape registering our common human essence, especially welcoming the inclusive input of Russian Orthodox churches in Ireland, who may also want to decry the conflict.
Within Russia, it is impossible to speak out against the war so, while the Russian Orthodox leader in Moscow may have to toe the Kremlin line, others operating outside the grip of dictatorial decree may well relish the opportunity to articulate opposition.
In conjunction with this national pealing of bells, President Michael D Higgins could symbolically initiate this daily bell-ringing idea by inviting all church leaders of all shades to Áras an Uachtaráin to ring the peace bell on site there, which would be a powerful message of collective compassion to all communities across the country. Non-church people will still be touched and reflect on the national solidarity enterprise as an integrated community for peace.
This would be a simple, non-arduous assignment for us all, which could help to bring the warring situation out into the community space with an insistent but brief daily resonance, which could have strong powers of persuasion.
“Ring them bells,” as Bob Dylan sang out in his reflective 1989 album Oh Mercy — and now more than ever do we need mercy to flourish.
Jim Cosgrove
Lismore
Co Waterford
Probing question on the next census
Following the introduction of an optional section in the 2022 census, asking us what we would like to tell our
future generation in 2122, might I suggest that a compulsory question be asked in the next census of Ireland: What did your relatives do in the Great Shame following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022?
Hypothetically, would Ireland be in a different place today if the same question had been posed in the census of 1946 regarding the Great Famine in 1847?
Liam Power
Dundalk
Co Louth
Alternative to Church-run school
Suzanne Harrington asks why it is anyone’s business but one’s own whether one follows a religion. Indeed, the same query could be asked of any of the other questions on the census but I guess it’s because the purpose of the document is to help forward planning.
The religion question supposedly has an impact on things like the provision of public schooling, although in reality the choice of parents themselves has more impact.
The Catholic Church was the primary educator of this country since independence (and before) as the majority of the population were Catholic and wanted their children to attend Catholic schools (and would hardly have been welcome anyway in Protestant schools), and the Church was the only organisation in the country with the
infrastructure and personnel capable of delivering such a service.
Indeed, many of its critics today owe the education of their ancestors and families — and the opportunities this education provided — to the very same Church.
However, there is an alternative to faith-based schools in the form of secular Educate Together schools and there is nothing to stop parents such as Ms Harrington banding together to establish these schools for their own children, should they wish. There are already many of them flourishing around the country.
Ms Harrington should also bear in mind that no education is truly value-free and children will still be shaped in school by some form of ideology, whether it be Catholic or something else.
Nick Folley
Carrigaline
Cork
On the ball about GAA terminology
TG4’s coverage of the national football and hurling leagues brightened many would-be dreary weekends and was engaging, comprehensive, and analytical in its presentation.
However, I find the continued use of ‘liathróid’ by match commentators and panelists alike, when referring to the match ball, to be personally irritating and, more significantly, very disrespectful to the tradition of our indigenous games of hurling and football.
Whatever happened to ‘an peil’ in football agus ‘an slíotar’ in hurling?
In requesting the powers that be to correct this aberration before the championship, may I cite pages 269 and 349 respectively of De Bhaldraithe’s English-Irish dictionary (1959), the primary source for generations studying Gaeilge as the authoritative reference.
Michael Gannon
12 St Thomas’ Sq
Kilkenny
ESB could give something back
It is reported that the ESB and a semi-State energy company gives its staff generous discounts and generates huge profits. It would be nice if the taxpayer-owned company could do the same for its customers and decide to declare a temporary profit of €100 a year instead of €580m, giving the rest back in energy discounts until the price gouging of oil companies is over or we generate cheaper renewable energy.
Is Eamon Ryan, the environment minister, still asleep and dreaming about what he’ll make from the carbon tax?
Emmet Murphy
Kanturk
Cork
Slap-stick
So Will Smith gets a 10-year Academy events ban. That’s a right slap in the face.
Pat O’Connor
Millstreet
Cork
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