Ghostly Hours

Lost an hour somewhere during the night. An hour we will not exist, in order to facilitate a brighter day and longer evening for the coming months. All fine, if the weather plays ball. It rarely does. Fear not, for in October, we take it back to facilitate the profits of energy companies, who act more and more like an grubby monopoly with each passing year. A bit like the political establishment. It's funny how the bills always go up right before the long damp Irish winter sweeps in from differing directions. Anyway, at the end of the day, what's an hour between friends?

Four weeks shy of the actual event, Ireland is commemorating the events of The Rising of 1916 this weekend. Though there are many grassroots and local events to visit, Ireland's elite began their commemorations safety tucked behind steel fencing, access denied to the common man and woman. It's difficult to watch, history being airbrushed for the world's media to digest, the faces of the leaders of the rising, those who died as we struck out for freedom, replaced by images of folk with no involvement in the events of that week. Some put there for modern-political gain. Few buy into it, as recent election results testify too.
There's little to celebrate. We remain divided as a society, not much semblance of the equality, that beautiful ideal the executed leaders yearned for and died for. Teachers, poets, trade unionists. Woman. Man. Child. Catholic. Protestant. Each suffered and died. For a ruthless capitalist system that takes the lives of our citizens with a growing gusto right under the watchful eyes of those who have facilitated Ireland's economic and social decline. The ones pronounced as dignitaries - mostly by themselves.

Will we even have a government when the actual date of the events come around? The old-waring parties are the only ones that can form a stable government, but that is unlikely to happen. The dream of the Celtic Tiger that we would be ready by 2016 to really step up and take our independent place among the nations of the world washed away by greed and corruption by many of those who see themselves are Ireland's modern day saviours. Despite their collective Curriculum Vitae of shame, be it directly or by aiding and abetting others to do it. Maybe we suffer from a collective amnesia or maybe it is just that we do not care.

Larry was often an apologist for many of the wrongs, citing our infancy as a nation. Used to get up the wick of Leon. Fermented an anger inside him by times. He did not see Ireland as an infant, he saw us as a seasoned player in the shaping of our side of the planet despite the indignation we often suffered as we set out to make better lives for ourselves when driven out by oppressors, at times foreign, at times native. How we brought civilisation to our nearest neighbour and nemesis and gave the world notables such as Joyce, Beckett, Boyle, Hoban and Connelly.
Larry be winding Leon up. Citing more modern figures. Bono, Geldof, Charles J, before Leon would depart, flying fucks, into the perils of his bottle of choice.
'That drink ill kill him,' Larry would say, nostradamacally.

Strange days we live in. Everything every human being could ever need and we, drifting further away from anything that might be described as humane. Pomp and ceremony will not change that. Relegating our rising leaders to the back benches won't do it either. We'll remember on the proper date. With others who feel the same. At the time. At the place. On the hour. Hopefully, the daylight will be there too.

Saved - for all.