It has been an ugly start to the New Year. As the first month draws to a close, we are not filled with the optimism that comes with the unfurling of the daffodil blooms; our hearts are not pumped with the warmth of the setting sun that stays with us just a little longer every day. The spring that should drag us out of the end in the morning is less taut, as the realities of the days ahead and past sit on our chests.
It has been a period where the absolute horrors have been visited upon us with the shocking and brutal deaths of so many young people, caught up in situations not of their own making. The deaths of those small children in Dublin, the horror of Drogheda, the stabbings, the attacks around the country. The seeming futility of truth and consequence in world affairs.
Every week seems to bring its own new event. It has been a time when the worst excesses of our capability have been exposed. We now live in an Ireland where children are chopped up by drugs gangs, where knives are de rigeur at parties, where train passengers have their hair set alight; where an underlying mental stress lies just beneath the surface of every home and workplace, writing the script of next week’s horror.
It is a time when we need a collective hug; a sort of communal recognition that when all is stripped away, we need the respect and support of one another to get throughout life. And to get this, we need to create the sort of society that appreciates empathy; that sees it as an essential life skill, rather than just an optional extra that sound people have.
It is a time when you come to the end of each news bulletins with a heavy heart, where every social media post brings a sigh.
And into the middle of this, comes a General Election where we are being charged with selecting the people who will represent the sort of Ireland that we want to live in.
Nothing we have seen in the campaign so far represents any lightening of the mood. Nothing we have seen fills us with hope that this better Ireland is what we will get. With each policy comes a bucket of doubt. So we watch as candidates go up and down our roads, like a swarm of bees, like adults doing Trick or Treat; giving us an attention that never seems to be there in between elections.
Even the comments made about our own Taoiseach this week have highlighted the ignorance at the heart of our ruling class.
How can anyone ever think that this was an acceptable comment to make? How can one think that a condition can be used as an insult, something to be a negative rather than a positive? We elect people based on how we like to see ourselves represented. We elect them in the belief that they would know better than to not know what can hurt people? And in mentioning this, I am not picking on the politician who made this week’s comment. Far too often, we hear the line that something was just a slip of the tongue.
In 10 days’ time, we will have elected a new Government. Let us hope it is filled with those who show the empathy and the cop-on to know what they should know, those who will encourage a better and warmer Ireland of which we can be proud once again.
