Chai Brady
Adi with a child in Vesnova Children’s Institution. Campaigner Adi Roche speaks to Chai Brady about nuclear weapons, politically- correct Ireland and ‘inspirational’ St Brigid
For the founder of a charity dedicated to those affected by the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, addressing a crowd gathered in the Vatican was the perfect opportunity to tell St Brigid’s story and how the saint has given inspiration for all her good works, including advocating for nuclear disarmament and fighting for the environment.
The Irish Ambassador to the Holy See, Derek Hannon, invited Irish humanitarian and activist Adi Roche to be guest speaker at this year’s St Brigid’s Day event organised by the Irish Embassy to the Holy See on January 30.
Taking place in St Isidore’s College in Rome, Mrs Roche said her focus was on her love for the environment, justice and life, which are all sustained by a bedrock of devotion to St Brigid.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic Mrs Roche says: “For me Brigid is a strong figure particularly for my generation. I was introduced to her from an early age in rural Ireland in Clonmel in Tipperary. We were introduced to the symbol of St Brigid’s Cross and we learnt her story through that.
“One of the reasons I was really excited to do this event is because she’s such an iconic figure for me and has been all of my life. In a sense I feel she’s been slightly airbrushed out of the Irish story, to me she is the second patron saint of Ireland.”
Hospitality
For Mrs Roche, St Brigid is renowned for her hospitality, her almsgiving, her care for the sick and elderly, for the oppressed and living a life dedicated to God.
“To me she was a healer, someone of great compassion, she was very close to nature. I suppose in modern day she was an advocate for justice and rights,” she says.
Mrs Roche has worked on environmental issues since 1977, and says only a strong response from humanity can fix the damage already done. Mentioning the World Economic Forum in Davos, which took place last month and saw major companies sign up to the most comprehensive effort yet to account for businesses’ social and environmental impact, she says although there were important interventions, there still seems to be a cynicism regarding climate change.
“I think remembering Brigid for what she stood for gives us an opportunity – because of her connection with the earth and life – to look again at the very difficult times on the planet, particularly in relation to global warming and the issues going on in Davos, the deniers of global warming and the impact. We’ve only a short period of time to help the earth to heal itself,” she says.
“It also gets us to reconsider how fragile our planet is and particularly now in a nuclear age in the hands of man.”
Framework
The framework launched in Davos will enable companies to report their corporate metrics on subjects such as employment standards and the environment in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The metrics are intended to be deployed from 2021.
Linking the story of St Brigid to her own activism work, Mrs Roche told attendees at the Vatican talk how her passion has been invigorated by the Irish saint, and how she “held onto that faith even in the most desperate of times”.
“I’m acutely aware of how fragile our earth has become, there’s land degradation, poison of our waters, we see that in our own country and the damage to all of the eco-systems,” she adds.
“Brigid knew that everything is connected in nature, that we live in a delicately balanced web of life and when you damage some of the strands of that, we ultimately damage ourselves, as in our whole species and all other species. She had a profound message for caring for the environment because unless we have a healthy environment, nothing will survive.
“We’re hearing about the damage to insects, to the bees for example, there’s a crisis globally… God created this extraordinary life cycle, everything is connected and everything is interdependent on everything else and I think what we should be learning that now is the time for humility. The earth isn’t a piece of property or a piece of real estate that we can suck dry of its resources and expect it self-heal, what we’re learning is that it can’t, because the rate of degradation and destruction is so fast.”
Her anti-nuclear activism dates back to when the Irish Government had plans to build nuclear reactors in Carnsore Point in Co. Wexford. This passion led her to establish Chernobyl Children International.
“I have a great love of life and I have a great desire to share that love especially when it comes to being an advocate for little innocent children, victims of the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl,” Mrs Roche says.
In Ukraine 6,000 babies are born every year with major heart defects. In response, Chernobyl Children International developed a Cardiac Programme which provides life-saving surgeries. According to the charity they have saved 4,000 children with the programme to date.
You think you know what happened at Chernobyl, but you have no idea…”
Thirty-three years after one of the world’s worst nuclear explosions – which ravaged the town of Pripyat, Chernobyl’s story has been forgotten by many. However, HBO and Sky’s five part Chernobyl mini-series brought about a new public consciousness and raised awareness about the catastrophe. The series executive producer and writer Craig Mazin said: “You think you know what happened at Chernobyl, but you have no idea…it was hours away from being so much worse.”
Mrs Roche commended Pope Francis for acknowledging the men who were key in stopping the nuclear disaster becoming much worse: the liquidators.
The 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster saw several survivors, including liquidators, invited to the Vatican by the Pope. They were lauded for their courage and bravery during a General Audience in 2016, April 20.
In the same week Mrs Roche also spoke about Chernobyl but at the UN General Assembly in New York. “Pope Francis went one step further,” she says, “he actually brought a group of Chernobyl survivors to honour them. Now that to me was hugely significant because he not only brought families and ordinary people who were affected but he brought the group of people that have been almost airbrushed out of history.
“They were the men called the liquidators, the first responders, the firefighters that went into the fires of hell in Chernobyl to try and out the radioactive fire because it would have destroyed Europe, and the rest of the world would have been seriously contaminated.
“They’ve been forgotten, all these heroic men. He brought a group of the liquidators and they wore their liquidator medals and everything. He honoured them while they’d been forgotten by their own government. It was very powerful.”
Pope Francis has a fan in Mrs Roche, who she says she feels he is “the man for the job”, with his awareness of the environment and outspokenness regarding disarmament.
“He is an everyday icon in how we can try and bring about a situation where we can work on nuclear disarmament, work on trust-building between nations by using such fora as the United Nations to resolve problems and conflicts rather than sending in drone attacks which then sets another fire aflame in countries like Iran,” she says.
Nuclear tragedies such as the power plant in Fukishima which was damaged by tsunami causing a meltdown, the brutal bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and Chernobyl are examples of the huge dangers of nuclear energy, according to Mrs Roche, adding “thank God we don’t have nuclear power or nuclear weapons in Ireland”.
“We know from Fukishima, it has actually impacted right around the globe. Of course we know from the history of Chernobyl there wasn’t a corner of this planet that didn’t get a dusting of radioactivity in 1986. Radiation is an invisible enemy, you can’t see it taste it or touch it, yet it gets into the DNA of life,” she says.
“I wouldn’t be surprised in the future if they try and lobby for nuclear power [in Ireland]. I will be a voice saying, ‘let’s reflect on that and find safe, clean, renewable sources of energy rather than going the perilous nuclear energy route’.”
Harnessing solar, hydroelectric, and particularly wind energy are the answers “staring us in the face”. Coupled with developing energy efficient technology, she explains, this will stop humanity “going back to the dark ages of the last century”.
Looking at a woman having a double monastery, that was pretty revolutionary for men and women”
“I see it at the Young Scientist Exhibition every year. If we listen to these youngsters, who still have the innocence of their young lives, they still have great hope, they have come up with magnificent ideas which can be developed by specialists in order to ensure that we go the route of sustainable energy, which is God-given.”
Her “self-appointed job” in Rome is to light a fire again under the story of Brigid. Holding up a St Brigid’s Cross, made by a primary school in Dublin’s Bayside at the end of her address, Mrs Roche explained its meaning.
St Brigid’s story being told in schools, and pupils engaging in activities such as making St Brigid’s Crosses, is something close to Mrs Roche’s heart. She believes the saint can be a source of inspiration for both young boys and girls. After all, primary school is where the seed of her devotion was first planted.
“I think we’ve lost that story in our being so politically correct nowadays, it’s such a loss. Young girls in primary school are not being told the story of Brigid and the relevance of the cross and how it came about,” she says.
“I just think it’s so sad that they don’t have the opportunity to hear of these magnificent stories that young girls and boys would really identify with and could take their inspiration from.
Homeplace
Mrs Roche says that schools should visit the saint’s homeplace in Kildare and visit the site of a monastery she is said to have built which was for both religious brothers and sisters – a thing unheard of at the time.
“Looking at a woman having a double monastery, that was pretty revolutionary for men and women and it would be revolutionary enough now. It must have been amazing then,” Mrs Roche says.
“I am very saddened in our rush to be very politically correct that sometimes we throw out the baby with the bathwater and that we don’t hold on to what is very special to us as a race, as an island nation, for what makes us different and special, because I do believe in the trailblazing done by Brigid.”
She says people might wonder why Ireland has “this unique kind of virtue of mind and heart and that when we see the pain of others that we want to immediately make a connection”.
Mrs Roche quotes former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern regarding women’s role, ‘lots done, more to do’”
Referencing the missionary work of Irish Christians she continues saying “we throw out lifelines throughout the planet and we’ve done that for hundreds and hundreds of years”.
“Where did that come from? That sense of our place in the world, our care, our justice and our compassion? And in all due respect for other religions, faith and traditions, I think the Christian faith has been put into Christian action and we in Ireland seemed to have grasped that way back in the days of Brigid and back in the days of the island of Saints and Scholars.
“I think we’re still growing in it, even though it may be lesser in schools now, and there is still hope. There are some individual teachers who’ll bring in these stories once more, I think it would be a very beautiful thing.”
The issue of women in the Church has been an increasingly hot topic, with discussion and even heated debates and criticism by many vocal advocates, many of whom are aiming to create a more inclusive Church that respects the efforts and devotion of all the faithful.
Mrs Roche quotes former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern regarding women’s role, “lots done, more to do”.
She says: “I think we’re on the right track and I think we’re under the right stewardship in Francis. Changes are coming, and change takes time, attitudes need to change and I think women’s voices are being heard more and more.”
St Brigid, St Gobnait, St Íte and many more are part of a group of “amazing Irish women saints” that are her continued inspiration.
“These were all energetic, holy women who literally practiced what they preached and their message was of love, compassion and really reaching out, giving a helping hand,” she says.
“I draw on this amazing army of women actually, and I just love to focus on the power of that and how we build on it in today’s world. Definitely I think the Church is opening more. It is more receptive and rather than going down the absolutely critical route of ‘we should be doing this, that and the other’, I like to focus on what we can do, what we are doing, where we get our inspiration from and constructively work towards more immersion of women within the Church.”
Mother Earth
For Mrs Roche, she hopes her address in the Vatican gave attendees some food for thought and “a bit of fire in the belly” to be courageous and respond to the “crying of mother Earth” and find confidence in the story of St Brigid.
“When we ask ourselves in our Faith, am I my brother or my sister’s keeper? For me Brigid shouts it loud from Kildare and it’s a resounding yes, I am my brother and my sister’s keeper, we are all the same human family, we reach out to one another in our shared common humanity to our brothers and sisters in every corner of the planet on which we live.”