I was going to do a blog on a figure that (I sincerely hope) is fading fast back into the world of television financial game-show: Peter Casey. I may in fact do so later. But first I must rid myself of a comment or two on how we are being brain-washed.
Because have no doubt about it, we are. Recently I had the radio on BBC Radio Ulster /Raidio Uladh and calls were coming in from listeners who told the name and story of their dead great-uncle or cousin or grandfather who had enlisted in the British army and died in the First World War. It seemed that the feeling these people had for their dead predecessors was genuine, although I’m not sure I’d be able to get too emotional about someone I’d never met. Maybe it’d be different if I’d researched the details of their deaths. Anyway, lots of stuff on loss and people wearing the poppy to show they remembered these dead relatives.
I switched over to RTÉ and crikey – the exact same thing. Caller after caller telling Joe Duffy about their ancestors who had enlisted and died in various WWI battles or otherwise made “the sacrifice” and were listed among “the fallen.” If you pick up the newspaper today – virtually any Irish newspaper – there’ll be more stuff about personal stories of WWI loss. And people wearing the poppy with pride to show they remember them.
And if you go to Dublin and walk up Grafton Street and enter St Stephen’s Green, you’ll be confronted by a very large statue of a soldier from the First World War.
As someone whose family tree, like many, contains relatives who “sacrificed” themselves for the rest of us, I’m caught between amazement and resentment at this onslaught on the Irish public consciousness.
The implication and even declaration behind this onslaught is that those Irish people who had relatives killed in British uniform in the First World War were hiding that fact, until the country matured and came out of the WWI closet and embraced their memory. Bunkum. I have never come across anyone who tried to hide that their ancestors fought in WWI. The photographs of those who died, usually in their British army uniform, were to be found in lots of houses, including my own. Sometimes they were framed and hung in hallways. So of course people acknowledge and in some cases grieved the loss of relatives in that war.
But when did they have to wear a poppy to show the world that they were grieving and proud? Should any of us (God forbid) lose a loved one, would we want to push onto the airwaves to tell the world about what we were feeling? In my experience grief tends to be a private, not a public thing: if sympathisers come, well and good, but few mourners feel the need to assert their grief in public.
And when did we get to the absurd stage where the only legitimate forum for expressing that grief is alongside uniformed British soldiers? Watch the ceremonies tomorrow: yes, they’ll be dignified and they’ll be shot through with sadness. But there’ll also be a large dollop of pride: these were our fighting men, and weren’t they brave? Weren’t they noble to make the ultimate sacrifice? Isn’t war a gallant enterprise?
Love me, love my dog is one thing. But grieve for your ancestor, grieve alongside uniformed British soldiers? Grieve your ancestor, grieve by ringing a radio station? Grieve for your ancestor, grieve by wearing a poppy?
You’d think by now the Irish people would be able to spot when death was being used to ram home a particular political message. It seems some of us are very slow learners.
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