Always at Home In a New Old House

Our new house on moving day. 

Yesterday, we heard from two different neighbors that Malcom, an old man who lived down the road, died of covid. He had gone to the hospital in Letterkenny for dialysis and they detected it there. He never had a chance to come home, and no one knows if his family could even say goodbye. 

His burial is today, but there will be no wake, mass, or funeral to attend. 

We heard a neighbor is organizing us to walk out to the road to salute the hearse leaves the house to the burial ground. We won't be joining in, because even though we know people in the neighborhood, we don't want to endanger anyone. 

It was only last week that we moved to a house just few miles from Dunfanaghy. 

We're in a townland called Lower Faugher, but everyone calls it Marble Hill. An old Irish name is Lacknaloe. 

That's the smoke from our sitting room fire. The middle chimney is above the stove in the kitchen. The third chimney belongs to our landlady. We tend to stay in the kitchen during the day, move to the sitting room for the evening, and then sleep above that warm room all night. Then we do it again, because like the rest of the world, we are staying home. 

The government cancelled St. Patrick's day in mid-March, closed the schools, banned public gatherings, and hoped  everyone could work from home. The following weekend thousands of Northern Ireland tourists came to town, because the UK government has been a few weeks behind in getting the picture, just like another country I know. So the Donegal county council closed the beaches too, and by now, everyone gets it. 

I love reading the /Ireland and /NorthernIreland subReddits so of course there's this:

 

According to this graph I saw on reddit today, the practice of social distancing is working. 

(source)

When I wrote "the government" above, I should explain that the epidemic started just as Ireland held a general election. As Sinn Fein president Mary Lou MacDonald put it: 

In February we had a general election that produced the most seismic result in the history of the State; shattering the traditional duopoly of the so-called “big two” parties and reshaping the Irish political landscape.

For the first time ever, neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael won the largest share of the popular vote, and for the first time ever the combined forces of political conservatism failed to win a majority of Dáil seats.

Parties that advocated a different vision of how the State might work—in terms of how we provide adequate, affordable housing for our citizens, how our health system functions, how we provide for people’s retirement and how we redistribute wealth—made big gains on the basis of a mandate for real change.

That is what people voted for, and notwithstanding the current crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the people have cast their verdict and before long the election result must count for something.

Ireland is in the middle of something that people in the US fear. What if the politicians currently in power lose the election, but use the epidemic to remain in power?

The duopoly MacDonald mentions didn't exactly "lose" the election, but nobody won it. Three parties each won less than a third of the vote. Unlike the US system, the Irish system requires a winning party to assemble enough Electeds to actually get stuff done (ie., their party platform). That's called "forming a government." 


Sinn Féin is already one of the governing parties in Northern Ireland. Here is a screenshot of the Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill speaking about covid precautions. There are two sign language interpreters because the deaf community of NI uses both British and Irish sign languages. 



(Both First Ministers of NI are women, by the way.) 

Sinn Féin has always been popular in Donegal, but never won enough seats nationwide to be invited to govern in Ireland. 

Since the 1980s, Sinn Féin grew in power as the political expression of the Irish Republican Army; the peaceful political path toward ending The Troubles. Beyond its commitment to a united Ireland, Sinn Féin's policies are democratic socialist. They would not support the current government's neoliberal policies that favor capital and corporations. 

So the two main "rival" parties find themselves considering a coalition between themselves along with a few members of minor parties who rarely get invited to the big kids' table. They must do anything to keep SF out of power, which could only demonstrate that democratic socialist policies are popular, possible, and even profitable. Sound familiar? 

Then came covid. Suddenly the impossible is imperative: universal basic income, rent and mortgage freezes, universal health care and child care. 

This Irish Times editorial should also sound familiar:

Hard as it is to think it at this dark moment, the crisis affords us glimpses of a better world. Things we were told could not happen – a single public healthcare system, a ban on rent increases – materialised within days. It turns out that buying things is not the key to a good life. A modern world that can feel cold and impersonal, we were reminded this week, is full of good, generous people who will look out for one another when times are hard. 

People who were so often under-valued – nurses, transport workers, retail staff – are now, quite rightly, our designated essential workers, applauded from the doorsteps for their care and their self-sacrifice. And while technology can help us get through difficult times, it is a poor substitute for that deep yearning for belonging, for kinship and company. 

Perhaps that’s the legacy that those of us who live through and survive this pandemic will retain: a recognition, as individuals and as a community, of what we value most in this world.

Before covid, everyone thought that a government would be formed by Easter. That could be what happens, but it's not clear what that government would be. The Greens want a "unity government" for six months includes all parties focusing on response to the epidemic. Instead, FG and FF look to be putting aside their differences to join together. We'll know more soon. 

In the meantime, the previous Taoiseach is performing well under pressure, and people are wondering where he's been all this time. Here he is on March 19th. 

In fairness, he is a medical doctor. What a contrast to the crooked real estate developer. 

Today is cloudy and warm, and after I finish this post, I will go on a long walk on an old road on the ridge behind our house. Like everywhere, it's time to get to know the neighborhood. 

The air is densely filled with birdsong – was it always? Maybe we didn’t hear it. Sound-space was filled in with the hum of traffic. That hum is known to be a vasoconstrictor, it makes our veins tighten and become smaller. In other words, our inner space was made smaller by that sound-space we used to feed and thrive on.

Now that it’s dimmed, we might hear what Irish mystic John Moriarty called the “Énflaith”, the birdreign, a future state in which we live in unity with all the other living beings. It’s a world that finds itself in new harmony. Maybe there’s passage now, a narrow but finally open space towards a different way of living in time. (source)

Our dear friend Helen lives just 100 yards from us now, but we've decided to keep a social distance from her too. My monthly trips to the hospital for injections are probably safe, but I don't want to risk her health. We used to eat dinner together every Sunday night and were looking forward to spending more time together. Now, here is the state of us: