Mary Kenny
November is the month of the dead: traditionally in Ireland, the month of the Holy Souls. Elsewhere, all over Europe, ceremonies to mourn and remember the dead are held.
Each November, as an Irish person resident in England (though, when Covid regulations permit, regularly in Ireland) I am faced with the same dilemma: do I purchase and wear a poppy to commemorate the dead of the two world wars – and the many other wars?
The poppy has always been a contentious symbol in Ireland, because it is sponsored by the British Legion, and therefore, to some extent, is linked with what some would see as British militarism.
Clashes
Back in the day, there were bitter clashes over the wearing of the poppy. Constance Markievicz herself tore a poppy off the lapel of a World War I veteran. Then, when the old man said that he was wearing it for his son, who died at the Somme, she felt a desperate pang of remorse for her action. A poignant example, I think, of where the theory of political power meets the ordinary human story of loss.
In the North, the poppy has sometimes come to signify a tribal divide, as it were. Those who wore it were more likely to see themselves as sharing a British identity; those who declined it did not.
I suppose, sub-consciously, I still retain a certain tribal resistance to putting a poppy on my lapel. And there’s something else, too: I have come to dislike what has come to be defined as ‘virtue signalling’. This is the act of showing off – by speech or emblem – what a virtuous person you are.
I also dislike the compulsory element which arises in poppy wearing. I have been in BBC studios where the make-up girl automatically went to pin a poppy on my collar. It was an automatic policy, which I resisted.
Isn’t it mean- spirited not to support the poppy sellers?”
And yet, at this time of the year the poppy sellers are out in the streets and they are nice, kind people, young and old, who feel a sincere desire to honour the dead and help young soldiers too, who may be suffering from the effects of serving in combat. Isn’t it mean-spirited not to support them?
In the end, I compromise by putting a couple of quid in the collection box, and for the Sunday of remembrance only, pin the poppy on my coat as a sign of respect for the dead.
Whatever the politics of the matter, the dead deserve remembrance, respect and the prayers of November.
The West’s awake for ‘Sleepy Joe’!
l Nice to see that the prominence of Joe Biden has given Ballina in Co. Mayo a higher profile – it’s now globally recognised as Mr Biden’s “ancestral home town”. Ballina is a pleasing town, where the rushing Moy river forms a picturesque view against St Muredach’s cathedral.
Westport, more conventionally pretty, has traditionally drawn more tourist attention, but Ballina has rightly seized its chance for celebrity. Even if Co. Louth has some claim, also, to the Biden heritage…
Do more than you think you can…
I was about five years old when a distant cousin of my mother’s came to live in our house, as a paying guest. Onnie (Honoria) Mulkerrin was a retired schoolteacher, a spinster and a patriotic Irishwoman who had been active in supporting the rebellion of 1916.
On her own initiative, Cousin Onnie undertook to teach me how to read. I was a restless, fidgety child, but patiently, over the summer, she conducted these reading lessons. After a short session, I’d be trying to escape, to climb trees or ride my bicycle. “A little more, Mary,” Cousin Onnie would coax. “You can do more than you think you can.”
For some reason, I vividly remember the moment I realised I could read the words on the page. They made sense!
A lifetime later, through the Internet’s connections, I’ve been contacted by Cousin Onnie’s great-nephew, Jim Hanley. He’s a retired Catholic education teacher in Brisbane: he and his wife Pat have also been lay missionaries in Papua New Guinea, and he did a dissertation on Nano Nagle. Jim found some of Cousin Onnie’s letters from our old Dublin home – people wrote a lot of letters back in the 1950s.
The past is always there, in the deposit of our lives. How rewarding it can be when a link with that past unexpectedly returns.
Cousin Onnie’s words have stayed with me when I’ve found a task particularly challenging. “Come on, Mary – you can do more than you think you can.”
A lesson in reading, and for life.