We’re publishing a “Postcard From Ireland” by longstanding contributor Dr. Sinéad Murphy, an Associate Researcher in Philosophy at Newcastle University. Her first visit to the home country for the first time in two years was both heartening and depressing, as she makes clear. Here is an extract:
Two years of the most turmoil the world had ever known, and the Republic somehow unchanged.
There were masks, yes. Oh my, were there masks. On the day before Christmas Eve, I sat in the car for a full hour-and-a-half just outside the entrance to Dunnes Stores supermarket, waiting while my sister queued outside to get in and then queued inside to get out again. I may have seen as many as 500 people as I waited, queueing outside to get in and then inside to get out again. How many went without a mask? Aside from very young children, not one. The Irish mask like no one else on earth – with the possible exception of the residents of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
But staring so long at such total compliance produced a kind of optical illusion. Though there was not a single face on show, I began to imagine that there was or to forget that there was not. I began to see faces. The horror of Covid masking somehow retreated. How could this be?
Nobody in the Christmas queue for Dunnes Stores was ‘distancing’ in any noticeable or orderly way. Indeed, to conduct their many and lively conversations it was necessary for them rather to lean towards one another so as to understand and be understood. The Irish had not reneged upon their infamous propensity to chat, despite the masks. They doggedly went at it nonetheless, tracing common friends and family, establishing shared interests and opinions, remarking on the scene. It must have been hard work, gagged as they were. But they did it.
Worth reading in full.
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I know that we don’t have much to shout about but we are the English. Just like there will be Welshman who are horrified by all of this. Doesn’t matter things are becoming real. You can’t just throw beauty and morality out of the window. They are part of the human experience, They have tried to do so since the 1940s but they are on the back foot. Dostoyevsky said that beauty will save the world. We will save beauty and we will make it better than ever.
Hear, hear.
Wales is indeed beautiful.
As Manley Hopkins pointed out, ‘only the inmate does not correspond’.
One day, some at least of the Welsh may become human again.
It really will bring out the best in us and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. We were admittedly asleep for a while.
Speaking as someone who grew up in Wales, the problem is that, despite its desperate attempts to appear like one, it really isn’t a country. It isn’t big enough, it is totally integrated both in infrastructure and culture with England and it is really just an English region with a distinct sense of identity, like Yorkshire or Cornwall.
Its been given powers way beyond its ability to responsibly wield them, and is currently run by a glorified parish councillor who is so palpably out of his depth that it is almost painful to watch.
The Covid policy seems to have been almost entirely predicated on doing exactly what England was doing but doing it harder and in a different order – the only purpose of which is to be different to England in order to make the devolved government look like it has autonomy and a reason to exist.
He may be out of his intellectual depth (about three inches) but he’s loving every minute of it. A nonentity inflatedby the foetid gas of terrorist corruption and universal cowardice. He doesn’t want the scamdemic ever to end.
Superb.
“Integrated both in infrastructure…” is a bit generous. Try travelling from Cardiff to Bangor, compared with travelling to London, e,g, either by car or by train. But yes, devolution has created an opportunity for bureaucratic and political opportunism on this health issue – and not in the public interest, unfortunately. (Like you, I grew up – in South Wales in my case).
We’ve decided not bother this year, like last, with the yearly trek for a fortnight in Wales. Drakeford is to be trusted even less than the very untrustworthy Johnson.
Write to Dungford and explain why Wales won’t be seeing you or your money.
The Welsh government probably couldn’t care less about the tourist trade and so not going there is the clearest message.
So you don’t go there, and they don’t care that you didn’t go there. What does that achieve, exactly?
Drakeford is old and will soon retire, ‘Jones the Politician’ will step into his shoes, and Old Mark will potter about his garden with the occasional brisk walk along the coastal path, and a weekly shop in Waitrose.
Drakeford will cry.
Why were the bereaved cruelly denied comfort? The cruelty was the point
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-were-the-bereaved-cruelly-denied-comfort-the-cruelty-was-the-point/
Laura Perrins
We need far more people at all our events here
if we want the tyranny to end for good
Thursday 3rd February 5pm
Silent lighted walk behind one simple sign
“No More Lockdown”
Bring torches, candles and other lights
Meet Corner of High Street & Pound Lane
Marlow SL7 1NF
Stand in the Park Sundays 10am make friends, ignore the madness & keep sane
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens Cockpit Path car park Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Henley Mills Meadows (at the bandstand) Henley-on-Thames RG9 1DS
Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
As per Laura’s piece in TCW, it does seem that aspects of the covid restrictions were designed to see how far they could push public complicity.
Perhaps the repercussions should reflect the public’s (belated) pushback against such effrontery?
Made me sad though. I spent time in the north as a youngster with young lads who just wanted to fight all the time. And now they lie down on their backs. I loved it I knew nothing about boxing or wrestling. It was so beautiful, lough neagh, the north Antrim coast, the strange pinik light around Carlingford loch. the mountains of mourne. This is where my heart really lies and I expect Irishmen to stand up.
She totally encapsulates the North’s attitude to covid. They DESPERATELY need to be seen to be doing something, (imagined conversations among NI’s PTB) “because, after all, everyone else is, if we don’t we are going to stand out like a sore thumb and that will just look awful, so why don’t we put up signs all over the place telling people to ‘wash their hands’? Motion carried.”
The Stormont executive should NEVER have been left in charge of NI’s management of the response to the ‘pandemic’. They were DESPERATE for the devolution of powers, but then when they got them they didn’t have the nous to exercise them in any way shape or form responsibly – and that applies to governance in general, not just covid, but covid exemplifies it.
A class of primary 1 kids could have devised a better response to covid.
And the worst of it is, it gives the lot of them a kind of “relevance” to the point where they just don’t want to let go of covid. Omicron is mild, hospitalisations with it are low, and what does the Health Minister do? calls in the military to assist the flailing NHS.
Your country is already destroyed just like ours is when you look at the power relations. We have people in our land who ensure that these globalists never take charge. They will never truly take England believe me.
I think the main reason for that is public sector employment although large is still lower in England, than for example Wales, Scotland, Ireland, it’s harder for government to control people who are not directly on their payroll.
This is exactly right. It is both depressing and heartening here. The mask compliance is odd but the attitude is generally completely different. I’ve not come across one person that I thought was actually scared. There’s a different tone in the health messaging, less preachy. Though oddly this country is obsessed with health, there are as many pharmacies as there are pubs though the two may be related.
Sadly my experience in Ireland is somewhat different. I have encountered many many in my professional and social circles who have been made very scared by the daily fear pushed by the state broadcaster and accepted unquestioningly by the over whelming majority. Also many who view those of us who remain unvaccinated as the dregs of society. It’s an incredibly unquestioning culture in relation to supposed authority and it’s been an uncomfortable space to be in.
Colin, I have had a few zoom discussions with family and friends who live in Ireland the latest being today. They are terrified of Covid. They test when they go out, they test when they come back home, and wear masks all the while. On the occasions when I stated my unvaccinated status, it seemed as though the screen had frozen briefly, and conversation became a bit mooted. Its as if they believed that it was not possible to be alive and not be vaccinated.
Are the ‘unvaccinated’ still not allowed into pubs and restaurants in Ireland?
Last year I went over to stay at my place in Clare. On one occasion, I bumped into one of my neighbours, a farmer who I can’t say I know or I’m properly friendly with but, in true Irish fashion, we’re normally happy to chew the fat for ten minutes or so.
On meeting him, I held out my hand as per usual, but he reared back, almost in horror and, shaking his head, said “No, no, thousands have died”, turned and walked away.
I’ve met this attitude in Ireland on several occasions since.
I don’t think the manic aspect of COVID-the-melodrama can be better expressed than by this sentence: No, no, thousands have died from shaking hands with and talking to strangers!
How could people who are so deluded that they actually believe this ever get to influential position in the public health bureaucracy? That’s akin to Jehova’s witnesses getting to control cancer treatement.
[Since that was all but abandoned, maybe this happened, too]
I see Ivor Cummings @fatemperor twtter account has been temporarily suspended by Twitter, don’t they just hate the truth.
They have no answer to the truth but to vainly attempt to bury it.
This is why they are losing, the entire self annointed elite establishment basically, as this video observation points out, are low grade imbeciles, the architects of their own demise.
https://youtu.be/2QhUNvwExsY
Today I drove over a mug cover, it blew out of the owner’s hand and I couldn’t stop, as I drove away, I saw her run into the road, grab it and put it on her face. To stay safe.
I’ve seen better muzzle stupidity than that. A woman in a bar in central Europe slathered lashings of alcohol gel all over her face rag until it was so saturated that it was dripping. Then she put it on, walked outside, pulled it down to her neck and lit up a fag! Darwin’s natural selection only a stray spark away.
While gel remains free, expect to see much slathering.
I’m wondering how popular ‘home testing’ for covid will remain once the test kits are no longer gratis.
My favourites have to be those I see in cars, alone, masked and texting (or reading messages) while driving – ‘staying safe’ indeed.
Most people where I live have done away with the mask – social distancing was never really adhered to here to be honest – some shops tried to encourage people to keep 2 meters apart most didn’t bother – you still see the odd one or two wearing a mask outside and in shops but I tend to ignore them because I suspect they only wear it to attract attention to themselves – the ones who I’m most dismayed with are the ones still wearing them in their cars or while jogging or cycling – they look absolutely ridiculous and along with the remaining few still wearing masks they might as well wear a t-shirt aswell with IDIOT printed on it.
“Though there was not a single face on show, I began to imagine that there was or to forget that there was not. I began to see faces.”
just this! Glasgow is fully mask compliant, and at times I have felt my mind playing tricks on me in exactly this way. It’s almost as if my mind is helpfully filling in the blanks, replacing masks with noses, mouths and chins. I catch myself at times thinking did they have a mask on or not, did I see a full face? Unless I am paying specific attention to an individual, say at the checkout, or when ordering food, or if I lock eyes with someone say in a food aisle and I fully register a masked moron or an unmasked free thinker. What damage is this doing to our children?
Nicola Sturgeon is a ****
I once saw a performance of a Greek play as it would have been originally: all the actors masked. You do start imagining expressions, because that’s what your brain has learned to expect. Byt what if today’s children never develop that expectation? Horrifying thought. The country of the blinded.
“Glasgow is fully mask compliant” – and yet, when you look at the covid maps, it’s the epicentre of cases per 100,000 in Scotland. The precautions are obviously working…
There are no ‘cases’ only lies spread by the Government.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/life-insurers-adapt-pandemic-risk-070702607.html
Hmm
There’s nothing like having your finger on the pulse.
The Irish seem to have contracted the EU complicity-without-much-thought bug.
I wonder if that’ll change now they won’t be getting all that ‘free’ money?
“The Irish mask like no one else on earth”
99-100% face mask compliance in Finland, population 5.5 million.
As someone of part Irish ancestry born and raised in England, the idea of the rebellious Irish has long seemed a bit of a myth to me. There is a very strong streak of authoritarianism and conformism among much of the population, and an almost eager willingness to look down on anyone deemed an outsider. Yes, I know these are generalisations, but generalisations are like brooms, they’re designed to sweep.