We’re sitting in Logan airport in Boston waiting to fly out to Shannon. We rented a room at the airport Hilton and promptly crashed for about 4 hours. It felt great to get horizontal and sleep well. we’re having a bite to eat and having a nice pint of Guiness speaking excitedly about being in Ireland tomorrow morning.
Aboard the flight to Shannon on Aer Lingus, watching a wonderful film, Jimmy’s Hall. The timing of viewing this film is interesting because I brought a book with me by Diarmaid Ferriter, A Nation And Not A Rabble, The Irish Revolution 1913-1923. I felt it incumbent upon me to learn more about the struggles that Ireland went through, this being the centenary of the 1916 Uprising. I did not understand the complexity of the period, all of the various factions and the elitist attitude that viewed the majority of the Irish population as an uneducated, illiterate rabble. This cut across quite a strata of Irish society, many, from clergy, college educated and within the revolutionary leadership, including the faction that signed the accord with Britain and those who wanted nothing to do with Britain were blinded by this attitude, even those committed to the struggle with the desire to raise the consciousness of the people and establish home rule. There’s something about us humans, we simply have this need to control and deny others the ability to have a meaningful and happy life. We become fixated on the righteousness of our own cause and cannot see the goodness or meaning in those outside our group. This tendency seems to run through every culture on the planet and the older I get the less I understand it. It’s a complex planet.