May Visitations. March Demises.

Swallows come to Ireland in May, for their own good reasons, all related to their survival. They come for food and the continuance of the line. They swoop and circle, gobble insects on the wing, nest, procreate and depart. Ireland, at least the Republic part of the island, expects two more May visitations this year. The Queen of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will swoop and circle, be well fêted, stay overnight, shore up the security of her descendants and then depart. The President of The United States of America will also visit in May. He may make it to Northern Ireland, though the border could prove an obstacle. The President will also swoop and circle, enjoy good food and drink – there will be the obligatory photograph of The President resting his elbow on a bar counter, inches away from a well-settled pint of stout – stay overnight (perhaps), ensure his own continuance in office by securing good pre-election coverage in print and broadcast media, then depart. This May visitation will confirm that The President is in fact white, with Christo-European origins.

The border does not prove an obstacle to the swallows who will happily swoop and circle, gobble, nest and procreate all across the island. And, if the countryside is not entirely destroyed, they will come back next year, because they have no interest in the post-colonial dimensions of the visit of The Queen or the economic imperatives of the visit of The President. They are open about their self-interest and necessity, yet find little of worth in degrading and valueless phrases such as 'Ireland is open for business' and 'Ireland Inc..' The swallows experience Ireland, North and South, as domestic, not commercial; home, not call centre or shop; family, not workforce or cheap labour market; current, not historical; egalitarian, not hierarchical; welcoming, not fawning: a great place to spend a summer.

With May visitations ahead, March demises occur. Snowdrops return below ground, taking their whiteness and their promise with them, their shining innocence lost to us for another year. An uneven cast of weather tempts us with thoughts of heat, light, the swallows' arrival and the final days of Winter. 

A bright star of Hollywood dims, fades and goes out when Elizabeth Taylor, actress and very-public figure, dies. In the film version of Edward Albee's wonderful 'Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?' she leans into her husband, played by real-life husband, Richard Burton, as they coruscate around each other in a drunken row and whispers to him  'Getting angry, baby, huh?'

The Minister for Health in Belfast (54 degrees North, 5 degrees West), in a final act before the Northern Ireland Executive winds up for an election, handbrakes very-advanced plans for a radiotherapy unit at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry (54 degrees North, 17 degrees West). Altnagelvin is an anglicisation of Alt na Gealbhán, the ravine of the sparrows. Swallows will no doubt swoop and circle there in May, but if the Minister's decision signals another March demise, they won't see the radiotherapy unit and seriously ill cancer patients from the north-west of Ireland will continue their 200km plus round trips for treatment in Belfast and Dublin (53 degrees North, 6 degrees West).

Cue campaigns, rallies and protests.

'Getting angry, baby, huh?' 

Meltdown Modernity

The earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan present a major threat to modernity in an advanced First World country with a lauded, now debt-ridden economy, a stable society inhabited by people described as 'stoical' and 'pliant', living under a benignly authoritarian political imperium and enjoying widespread material well-being in complex urban and rural settings, lit up, in good measure, by nuclear power plants. 

The earth's crust shifts, cracks open and buildings topple, motorways buckle. Fragile humans, mere flesh and bones, perish in the debris. Then the sea surges, heaves up and casts itself upon the beaches and the coastal plains, smothering all before it, before sucking everything into its great maw. Japan lives precariously on the fault lines and the edge of the sea. Is being modern sufficient? The most advanced monitoring systems, the best building controls, the most sophisticated social and public awareness and preparedness are to no avail in the face of the energy of the earth schism and the thundering brine. Fault lines trace the earth's crust and nuclear power plants bestride them in ungainly and delicate poses.

Japan is not Pakistan, where the 2005 earthquake caused 73, 000 deaths and a national catastrophe. Japan is not even New Zealand, where the more recent devastation in Christchurch chastened English-speaking Westerners because New Zealand is known, modern and, though far, is not foreign. In the way that Pakistan is unknown, far, not modern, and foreign.  

Some distance west of the epic centre of the Japanese earthquake lies Chernobyl in the Ukraine (51 degrees North, 30 degrees East), where, 25 years ago, a disastrous meltdown of a nuclear power plant occurred. The aftermath continues to sicken a vast area around the site. Estimates are contested but a figure of one million dead as a direct result of the meltdown is current.

Putting the atomic activity of the stars inside a human-engineered facility is the  apex of modernity, a triumph of ingenuity and endeavour, grand-gesturing and profiteering by homo faber, the scientist and businessman. Yet Chernobyl remains a death-trap, threatening once more as the concrete sarcophagus that was hastily constructed to contain its over-heated core degrades and cries out for renewal.  

Engineers flood the the Japanese nuclear plants with sea water to cool the cores, in an act so ironic it seems unreal. The central bank floods the financial system with liquidity. People flee and panic mounts. Warnings from the power plants grow more strident. Modernity melts down. One man survives astride a piece of roofing, miles out to sea, a primeval image of a man clinging to timber and tile. Adrift, yet afloat. 

Ash. Willow. Hickory. Ash.

A man, in outdoor sportswear and helmet, addresses a small leather ball - a sliotar. He is performing a side-line cut in a game of hurling. He swings his bat of ash, (which is the length of his leg from the ground to his hip-bone), in a graceful arc, his shoulders following the line of the hills behind him, dipping into the gap between Scalp and Eskaheen (55 degrees North, 7 degrees West) as his bat - his hurley or hurl – arrives under the sliotar in a scything, lifting motion that propels it forward and upwards into the Spring air, dirty white against the china-blue sky, sailing and arcing towards and then between the uprights of the opposition goalpost for a score - a point. It is a moment of skill and grace. The man is modern and mythic. The hurley he wields is strong and supple. Ash.

The wielding of a willow bat - a cricket bat - caused great excitement when Ireland beat England in Bangalore (12 degrees North, 77 degrees East). There is always an extra frisson when Ireland beat England, even in a minority-interest sport like cricket. The colonised prove themselves better than the coloniser at the arcane colonial ritual of field, bat, ball, tea and sandwiches. Of course, the Indians love it, colonised themselves, seeing the underdogs put one over on the favourites, the colonisers. The fact that the England team set beer to chill at half-time in order to celebrate their expected victory added further spice to the upset. One TV commentator made reference to leprechauns and a wave of cultural imperialism welled up. Colonialism has a long tail, for both colonised and coloniser.

The clash of the ash and the thock of the ball on willow resonate through the history of Ireland and England. Bats and balls sound from mythological sagas through Plantation and Ascendancy eras into modern sporting jousts. Baseball bats are a recent arrival and are mainly made of hickory, not a native wood in England or Ireland. Baseball bats are put to a niche, non-sporting use here. Wielding them is more about power than skill and grace and is often a prelude to the arrival of the gun. Baseball bats break knees and arms, bruise backs, bust heads and shatter joints. 

Unlike cricket bats, which appear to cultivate joints. The colonisers' game is played in small pockets across Ireland, mainly by Unionist and Anglo-leaning traditions, by diverse people who proudly wear the garish green one-day cricket outfits with IRELAND emblazoned across the front and who sing Ireland's Call. Players close their dressing room door on the world's media, the searing heat of south India and the dented hubris of their defeated English opponents to sing, in unison, 'the four proud provinces of Ireland.'

Does the joy across Ireland at this cricket victory mean anything more than reflexive internalised colonialism venting briefly? Certainly the sense that people all across Ireland enjoyed the moment is heartening. Will it keep the baseball bats at bay?

The rugby and cricket anthem, Ireland's Call, could it ever be a soccer anthem? And might an Irish language version become a GAA anthem when Ireland play Australia under International Rules?

The soccer people remain partitioned, co-operative with but angled to one another, north and south. The experience of the cricket team in Bangalore (12 degrees North, 77 degrees East) underlines the truth that the sporting chances of a small island are enhanced when the whole island is involved. 

Cricket and the thock of leather on willow sounds across the Irish Sea and through the centuries. The player addresses the sliotar on the green grass. Hurling and the graceful swing of the hurley. Supple and strong. Ash.

Shall Mozart Quell the Shooting?

Two nights ago shots were fired at a police Land Rover on a nearby street. A British Army helicopter chugged above the city for the rest of the night, echoing a time gone by, but also a curiously resonant sound for today. The person who fired the shots hit the police's dysfunctionally uncivil Land Rover and almost hit police officers and civilians who were attending the retrieval of a stolen car. The shooter offers this action - this noise - as a solution to the problems posed by partition in Ireland.

Last night an orchestra played Mozart and Irish airs in the hall of a re-built school in an area of the city that sounded with the din of war for years. A piano concerto and a symphony. A soprano sang The Last Rose of Summer, with a clean high pitching tone and an ache that reverberated round the hall. Shall orchestras playing Mozart quell the shooting? Shall a soprano singing Moore's melodies solve the problems posed by partition in Ireland?

Would the great oud and string orchestras of Tunis, Tripoli and Cairo, perched and playing on the border between Libya and Tunisia, ease the passage of the displaced workers, now refugees? Bring Rahim Alhaj, the Iraqi oud virtuoso, from his exile in the US and let him play in the dusty, noisy transition camps on the Tunisia-Libya border. Shall the oud quell the pain? Smooth transitions to new functioning orders? 

As the shooter and the police engage on a nearby street, a call centre announces job losses. A contract changes hands, a client retrenches and the raucous bellow of the market shouts more people into unemployment. Perhaps a brass  band could come and play as the workers leave the call centre for the last time? The Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana is beautiful, sombre and affecting and sounds wonderful when played by flugelhorns, trombones, euphoniums and cornets. Would a brass band playing such beautiful music create new well-paid jobs? Lead us into economic recovery? 

The trial of Hazel Stewart for double murder ended in Coleraine (55 degrees North, 6 degrees West) with her conviction and sentencing to life imprisonment. She and her lover, Colin Howell, murdered their spouses, in order to facilitate their adulterous affair. Both murderers were Baptists, practising Christians, at the time of their affair and the murders. They sought salvation in power, lust and violence. Shall a choir sing Salvation is Created for the devastated families and quell their despair? Shall music be salvation? Shall we sing the world democratic?