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You know the pandemic is over when . . .

For the fainthearted . . .

. . . news of the abnormal becomes normal again.

The world reopened again yesterday. Pubs could have customers standing at the bar, nowhere had to close at eight o’clock, young people went to clubs in large numbers, sporting events could be run with full capacity crowds. These events might have been considered newsworthy a few weeks ago, but why would anyone now be interested in the normal and everyday?

The true mark of the return to normality is the return to the front pages of the abnormal and there …

Sleeping policemen

For the fainthearted . . .

Leaving the flat at 7.00 each morning, the fifteen minute walk to school has been pleasant. Perhaps Dublin was always much drier than rural Ireland, but since September, there have only been three mornings when it has been raining.

The clement weather allows time to look around, notice things in the morning darkness, things like the two building workers sitting in their van fast asleep.

It is a company van, bearing the name of a construction firm in Co Cavan. Perhaps the men depart from home very early to avoid …

Civil War deaths

For the fainthearted . . .

The Wikipedia entry on the Irish Civil War has been edited. The figure for anti-Treaty deaths has been changed from 1,000-3,000 to “at least 426.”

28th June will mark the centenary of the outbreak of the war and there seems little prospect of there ever being complete clarity of casualty figures.

It was back in 2014 that a conversation with Bill, a man who was then ninety-five years old, brought an awareness of how much had remained concealed.

Bill had been born in the summer of 1918, but he had …

Plain speaking politics

For the fainthearted . . .

The publication of the 2021 Census results for Northern Ireland later this year is likely to be a watershed moment. At the 2011 Census, Protestants numbered 48% and Catholics 45%. With ten years of demographic change, those numbers are likely to be reversed. In Northern Ireland primary schools, Protestant student numbers have fallen to just 37% of the total.

However, anyone who feels such a statistical shift is going to precipitate a united Ireland has not understood the deep cultural differences between those in the Twenty-Six Counties and those in …

Big Jim Larkin will have his day

For the fainthearted . . .

An invitation came to attend a commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the death of Big Jim Larkin in Glasnevin Cemetery on 30th January, except the event is online. It is hard to imagine Jim Larkin would not have gone and stood in the open air and declared his beliefs in a forthright way.

On the day that Jim Larkin died in 1947, Sean O’Casey wrote,

“It is hard to believe that this great man is dead, for all thoughts and all activities surged in the soul of this labour

…

There’s a stretch in the days

For the fainthearted . . .

“There’s a stretch in the days,” commented a friend this evening, “it’s after five and there is still light in the sky.”

Indeed there was.

“There’s starting to be a hint of light when I walk to school in the morning.”

When I first came to college in Dublin forty years ago, I remember the darkness of the winter mornings seemed strange. I think it was something to do with Dublin being six degrees west of London, and therefore twenty-four minutes behind.

Does the satirical website  Waterford Whispers still run …

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