This time two years ago, who among us knew that our capacity for awe was about to tested? For a generation or two, we had just suffered setbacks on an economic scale.
For two years, we have been traumatised and twisted at the travails of the pandemic. What passed as shock and restriction was described as 'the war experience for a generation.'
If the pandemic drew a grey veil across the globe, then the invasion of Ukraine last week, and just the possibility that this can still happen, drew a darkened curtain across our minds.
Our hearts are now heavy all the time because of what is happening in Ukraine; perhaps caused too by the disbelief that this could happen in what we assumed was a greater age of diplomacy and restraint.
With one fell swoop, we have been exposed to the knowledge that war is happening on this continent. There had been shame that the Balkan conflict was permitted to prolong as much as it did; there is even greater frustration now at the inability to stop the Russian aggression.
Here on the west coast of Ireland, we might seem distant from it, but we work alongside Ukrainians and Russians and Poles and Latvians and Lithuanians every day. They all play a strong role in all our communities. The Ukrainians are a productive and resistant people, as has been illustrated by their desire to fight for their country, and their contribution to many different spheres right across the globe.
So what can we do to help? In Mayo, there are many people organising the transfer of goods and medicines and foodstuff to be brought to the Polish border so that they can be distributed to the needy. You will find these on Facebook and social media.
Trucks laden down with material have been leaving the west all week for the long drive across the UK and Europe to get to their destination. To those who drove the trucks and those who filled them, we send our gratitude.
Soon, the Ukrainian refugees will come into our communities in their thousands. They are in shock, stunned by the horror of what they have witnessed. Up to 20,000 refugees fleeing the crisis in Ukraine could be accommodated in Ireland and families may be asked to open their homes, having already opened their hearts.
Let us do what we can for them — embrace them, enable them to heal from the psychological wounds that have been inflicted upon them. They will be stressed and unsettled.
The Government has waived any requirement for visas for Ukrainians to come into Ireland, and they are going to get a special refugee status when they get here for three years to be able to work and live here effectively as fellow European citizens.
This is not a time to be awaiting for the setting up of special hostels and such places of refuge. Let us open our homes too. Our Ukrainian friends need to be nurtured now, to feel that they are safe.
Let us all think individually what we can do to help them. In the coming weeks, such creativity will be necessary. In the meantime, give what you can to support their immediate humanitarian needs.
