Mary KennyMary Kenny questions what it takes to be considered influential
Who are the individuals who have most influenced you in your life? I suppose any of us would give a completely different set of answers to that question.
In some cases, we would say that we were influenced by someone completely unknown to others, such as a mother, a schoolteacher, or even someone long dead. In my formative years, I’d probably have answered “Yeats” to that question of who had most influenced me.
So any list of 100 most influential Irish people is bound to be arbitrary. It’s only an opinion – in this case, of an editorial team at the Sunday Independent who last weekend selected the 100 most influential people in Ireland. For myself, most of them have had no influence whatsoever on my thinking or on my life.
Some, to be sure, have power over aspects of our lives: Michael O’Leary of Ryanair has the power to facilitate my airline travel, and politicians and their advisors have power to shape the structure of a society which impacts on all. Civil servants and trade union leaders can exercise power, too. But influence? For me, hardly 3% of those 100 names strike me as being influential in a wider sense.
And it is surely historically significant that, of this contemporary roll-call, there is not a single Bishop, priest or nun: nor any national personality identified with a form of spiritual influence, like, for example, a popular author such as the late John O’Donoghue or – a person I consider has hugely influenced generations of women, as scholars, feminists, and people of faith – Margaret MacCurtain, also known as Sr Benvenuta, the Dominican nun.
You’d think that Fr Peter McVerry SJ, who has been working with the homeless and vulnerable for decades would rate as a person of ‘influence’: he has certainly had an impact on the national conversation about homelessness. You’d imagine that Sr Consilio, who has helped addicts for decades, or Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, campaigner for the marginalised and trafficked women, might be mentioned.
The last time I was invited to a posh ladies’ lunch at Dublin’s Mansion House, the star speaker was Sr Stan, and the fashionistas in designer frocks were hanging on to her every word. I’d have thought that counted as influence.
Material sphere
It is almost as though ‘influence’ was only defined in the material sphere, or, in the arts, in terms of glossy success, and anyone with a spiritual contribution has been deliberately omitted.
Perhaps, of course, the compilers intend the word ‘influence’ to mean “connections”: the business, professional and show-biz folk have influence with one another.
And yet, maybe it’s for the best that the spiritual dimension is omitted. Maybe it’s better if spiritual influence works by quiet ways, by osmosis and by hidden acts of faith, hope and charity rather than by worldly glory and fame, which, as we know, will pass into dust. Or, to quote the one phrase of Latin (see sidebar) I know: Sic transit gloria mundi.
Sharpening up
The Times of London has introduced a novel feature into its Saturday edition: a crossword in Latin.
I think it has a certain appeal to priests – at least, among some clergy I know – who like to see if they can sharpen up their church Latin with the puzzle.
It’s far too difficult for me, and yet it interests me, just to test what I can recognise. In a recent example, I figured out just two of the 24 clues – but matched up the solutions when they were subsequently published.
Here are eight of the clues, and afterwards, the answers:
(1) Eight letters: “Treachery, caedis Caesaris fortisan.”
(2) Five letters: Stop and stand up!
(3) Six letters: Eheu, punish one in ten legionaries!
(4) Seven letters: the last girls.
(5) Six letters: They go off (this one is easy enough!)
(6) Seven letters plus five letters: More haste, less speed! An oxymoron.
(7) Seven letters: You lot, learn!
(8) Four letters: Mens what? – in fine fettle, forte.
The answers are below.
Yes, the only two I could get were ‘Exeunt’ – a stage direction – and ‘sana’, as in ‘mens sana’. But the puzzle is a fun way to revive memories of Latin.
ANSWERS: (1) Perfidia. (2) Siste (3) Decima (4) Ultimae. (5) Exeunt. (6) Festina Lente. (7)Discite. (8) Sana.
‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’
Ireland’s generally excellent education system is one of the reasons given as to why the country has been placed tenth highest in the world for “general well-being”, by the global institute Legatum (in its measure of “prosperity index” – prosperity including well-being and democratic governance). This is five places ahead of the UK, which comes in at No. 15.
If the Irish education is so good, then why not apply that common-sense nostrum – “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”