It is perhaps quite apt that Druid is performing a selection of Tom Murphy plays these weeks in Galway. Murphy fans will remember the character of Pete Mullins in A Crucial Week In the Life Of A Grocer's Assistant, who opened all of his utterances and his conversations with "we'll have snow, ha?" Mullins, based on a real character in Murphy's hometown of Tuam said this, not because he genuinely believed that the white stuff was imminent, but because he wanted to contribute to the discourse of the day, to get a spake in, no matter how ridiculous what he was saying. It was his 'in" into a conversation. It was his way of contributing to the noise. In one way, if Peteen Mullins were alive today, he'd be stuck into the discourse of the referendum. He’d want to contribute to the noise, not to add anything to the conversation, but just to make the sound, to be heard.
And it is that clamour to be heard that has rendered much of the debate for this referendum unpalatable to the vast majority of the population. To many, it is just noise, counter argument upon counter argument with little or no way of knowing the level of credence in each utterance. The volume of participants on both sides, strange bedfellows, all vehemently arguing their point, plucking figures and mythical statistics from the air and thrusting them at us in the modern belief that we will accept all we are told, even from those who we believe are fighting our cause.
And it is that mishmash that has us all crying out for an end to this debate. How relieved were we last evening when the broadcast moratorium kicked in and we did not have to listen to the sad same vocies and accents bleating the same thing at us. Has there ever been a referendum that has exercised the people so little, that has not engaged our minds, that has seen so many straight contradictions as this one. We cannot be fooled either into believing that party politics are not at play on both sides, which confuses the issue.
Today is your chance to get out and have your say in a matter about how this country will be funded and possibly governed in the future. This newspaper will not encourage you to vote one way or the other, because to do so is not our role and would merely suggest that you did not possess the ability to make up your own mind. However I would like to take the opportunity to encourage you to make sure that your vote is exercised, so that no matter the outcome on Friday evening, you can say that you played your part in the ultimate acceptance or rejection of this treaty. Use your vote and play your role as a citizen... and by the way, I’ve looked out the window and I don’t think we’ll have snow. So you’ve no excuse.
