They say a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.
Whatever about the old men, but this country has certainly known one woman who uprooted trees and planted plenty of others under the shade of which the people of this State will sit for generations.
The passing this week of Vicky Phelan was like a death in the family. When news broke of her death, there was genuine distress in the face of all the recipients of the sad tidings.
We have all become familiar with the people who have been caught up in this trauma, some of whom were from our own area; and their sudden implosion into the public limelight is not something that any of them would have planned.
But forth they came, to highlight the wrongs done to them; to tell us rightly of their pain and distress. To point out the mistruths and the legalese.
I hope that the sharing of each of their stories brought them some solace. I hope too that all of those who have passed, did so with the fervent hope that their deaths were not in vain; that nobody will ever have to go through this again.
Vicky Phelan was the leader though, the captain of this team of wonderfully brave women. We all became friends of Vicky through association; through hearing her searing honesty; to wincing at every rendering of her condition.
As a country, we had to see bare the wrong that was done to these women and Vicky put herself forward as the raw conduit for that process.
When Vicky departed mid-lockdown to Baltimore in the hope of a successful treatment, we all became her flatmates, as espoused in the poem Vicky In The Flat.
We all wished ourselves there to help her, to answer to her every request, but most importantly, we wanted her to know that we cared, and that we were willing to do her bidding if needed.
There was an element of Granuaile about Vicky, a symbol of modern Ireland.
To her family and friends, our most sincere condolences. They will miss her beyond comprehension. For the rest of us, it will be hard to believe that she is no longer with us in body, although she definitely is in spirit.
For her courage and refusal to cow down when threatened by nature and law, we will never forget her.
Her place in history assured, her place in the minds of us all, permanent.
Farewell, Vicky.
A Markiewicz for the new time.
A woman who stood up for the nation
that had harmed her and many others.
And made it a better place.
When Ireland marks 200 years of wrestled freedom,
her name will be tapped into the clean stone
of walls to shield the work of those who changed it.
(Vicky In The Flat )
