The Senate election campaign is in full swing. Literature is pouring through the door. The process of election of candidates to the Irish Senate is complicated and extraordinary; those of us eligible to vote are inundated with paper. I came home one evening during the Easter holidays to find that the Princess had taken it upon herself to grade the election literature based on grammar, syntax and style. None of the candidates has got more than an A-, you will be disturbed to hear. And she hasn’t even considered the content.
Happy Birthday
My father was 91 on Friday, March 25. Unfortunately, he celebrated his birthday in a hospital bed as he has broken his hip and then picked up the winter vomiting bug in both the hospital where he got the new hip and in the hospital he went to for rehabilitation (apparently you can get it multiple times, who knew?).
I went down to Cork on the Friday to see him – it was Good Friday as well which is, despite its name, a bit of a gloomy day for a birthday for a Catholic. He was pretty well, happily, and they may let him out on April 2 if all continues well; he is a pretty robust 91 year old (not, however, as robust as a neighbour’s 91 year old mother who we regularly see at mass although not on Easter Sunday as she was off in Lanzarote with the extended family). Keep your fingers crossed for my father’s safe escape and a more cheerful birthday lunch at home.
In other Cork news, my brother has used the opportunity of my father’s illness to tidy the parents’ house. This is a bit alarming as it consists of removing the accumulated debris of ages and stacking it on the floor. I have claimed for my own 1970s Monopoly, a dusty and ancient Othello set, many children’s books and a mysterious jigsaw map showing the “New County Boundaries in the United Kingdom and Ireland”. I say mysterious because on the cover there is a handwritten price label, clearly affixed at a jumble sale, saying €2. Who on earth would have bought this after 2002 and why? And most mysteriously of all, we made it over Easter and all of the pieces were there:
Glory!
Michael’s scout troop had a mild parade to the church and back on St. Patrick’s Day. While it can’t be said that Michael regarded his trip to mass with any great enthusiasm, he attended with a greater degree of resignation than is typical and he brought up shamrock to the altar as part of the service.
The militaristic aspect of the scouts was strongly in evidence with a commanding officer shouting out instructions in army Irish (less intelligible than the other strongest Irish dialect – school Irish). Some of the troops marched with their hands in their pockets so clearly work to be done. Back in the scout hall, a former scout who is now something lofty in the Irish army presented a flag and spoke of his experience as a scout many years previously. Again, Michael bore it all with fortitude.
The Monday after Patrick’s Day, he had his reward. He got his first badge. He had to climb a mountain (covered some weeks previously) but he also had to write an account of it. I was astonished to see that he knuckled down and did it without any nagging (no nagging because we had forgotten, alas) and on submission, got his badge. Hurrah!
Out and About
The weather recently has been cold but fine. We tried to go to Eagle’s Crag a couple of weeks ago but were defeated by a huge traffic jam in the Dublin mountains. A hummer and a horse box had, unsurprisingly, insufficient room to pass each other by on the narrow country road and neither would retreat. My sympathy is with the horse box. We ended up going for a walk in the pine forest instead. And that was fine too:
Still, I was pleased when, last Friday, we packed a picnic and went off to Eagle’s Crag. The picnic was, from the children’s perspective, the best part of the day. It was bitterly cold in the wind but it was sunny and clear with great views of two lakes.
Listen, I Can Explain
Childminders are proving a bit difficult at the moment. We have our regular woman who, alas, is returning to France at the end of April. We have someone who is covering Tuesday afternoons which I cannot since I started the new job (and our regular woman cannot as she has lectures). We have the new woman who is starting in May. We have our regular evening babysitting woman who is doing some day time cover for us over the school holidays (but can only do bits and pieces as she has another job). Even with Mr. Waffle dutifully filling in the gaps, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind of interviewing and checking references and introducing new people. I offer this as an explanation for why the Princess came home from school on a Tuesday afternoon to find an unknown stranger in the hall welcoming her back. You see we’d told the boys and their school and just, somehow, neglected to tell herself, that we had someone new covering Tuesday afternoons. She was not pleased.
Once the boys start secondary school, I think there will be no more childminders.
1916/2016
So, this is the centenary of the 1916 uprising. Sadly, we haven’t got an additional bank holiday as the rebels chose Easter Monday for their revolution and it was already a holiday. What, what’s your point here?
In fact April 24th is the actual day of the rising but it is always celebrated at Easter so we have had much excitement in the run up to the big day.
Shortly before the Easter holidays started, the boys announced that on the following day (it was ever thus) they had to dress up in historical costume for school. Â Daniel was pretty sure that it was a figure from the Rising. Michael felt it was anyone from Irish history. So Daniel went as Michael Collins and Michael went as a druid. Their sister used all her genius to put together costumes for them at short notice. For added authenticity Daniel actually had coins from 1916 in his pocket. He knew they were there which I suppose helped him put in a solid performance as Michael Collins but he didn’t actually show them to anyone.
Michael Collins reads the papers:
Druid sacrifices a sheep:
They had the flag raising ceremony on proclamation day in both the primary and the secondary school. Michael was home sick and missed it but Daniel had a starring role – he got to read the Aisling poem aloud in front of the school. The short ceremony seems to have passed off pretty well.
Meanwhile in the secondary school, they had a very long ceremony involving much singing and speech making. Herself got to read her prize-winning 1916 poem out in front of the school. “Did they think it was good?” I asked proudly. “Well,” she said” I think that they were glad it was short.” They had had to listen to Douglas Hyde’s speech on “The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland“. Originally delivered in 1892, I think it may have lacked the zing of the modern TED talk and tried the largely teenage audience quite high. Though, as I pointed out to her, if they really believed in de-anglicising Ireland, the speech should have been delivered through Irish. That got a cool enough response.
This morning we went to inspect the various organised Rising related fun in the city centre on our bikes. The Princess who had, quite nobly, dragged herself from her sick bed to come along, greeted with horror the news that we were to travel by bike but it did work well, particularly when much of the city centre was car free. O’Connell Street, heart of the Rising, site of the GPO etc. was a little dull. Michael looked scornfully at the children singing beautifully on the makeshift stage and said, “I pity them, all the practising they had to do and now they have to wear these stupid clothes [sailor suits] and sing here on their day off school.”
We had better luck in the playground near the fruit market where children were in their 1916 gear and playing authentic games from the era. Michael joined in with enthusiasm and fitted in better than many with his slender frame and slightly pinched features (he’s like a supermodel, never eats enough). Daniel sat by the monument to deceased Irish patriots, site of former Bridewell, and looked appropriately gloomy. The children in the playground had obviously been given a bit of background about 1916 and told to go out and talk about it. I particularly enjoyed the young one who said, “The Volunteers, they think they’re amazing with their guns.” She then proceeded to sashay round the playground with her imaginary gun in a contemptuous manner. I heard another girl call out, “Hey guys, what do we think of the Volunteers?” So, you know, some anachronisms but actually quite endearing.
Michael picked up a sword balloon outside the fruit market which was probably the highlight of the day for him. You see him here posing with two members of Cumann na mBan.
“You know, my granny was in Cumann na mBan,” I told him. Level of interest: zero, alas.
For reasons unknown, there were a number of tanks and soldiers stationed on Smithfield Square also and we had an interesting chat with a soldier who had been in Chad and the Lebannon. Probably a highlight for me. The children ran into some classmates who had dressed up in 1916 gear which was exciting for them. We bought them food from the extensive range of food stands. It was, dare I say it, reasonably successful.
