Time heals all wounds

It is said that time heals all wounds, although the motto doesn’t specify just how much time may be required. Still, it happens. Just look at Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and their plans to govern together during this time of crisis.

The plans may not run smoothly, and there may be arguments over the finer details of power-sharing; but anyone who has memories of the Civil War transmitted by their parents will surely reflect on how extraordinary it is that these two warring political parties could now share such a sense of harmonious purpose.

For 40 years after the end of the Irish Civil War – which ended in 1923-24 – the two parties wouldn’t even share a cordial drink together in Dáil Eireann. C.S. ‘Todd’ Andrews, a Fianna Fáil big cheese (and great-uncle of Ryan Tubridy) says in his memoir that his family wouldn’t have a Fine Gaeler in the house.

In Blackrock, Co. Dublin, the De Valeras and the family of Kevin O’Higgins lived around the corner from one another. They never spoke or socialised. Dev, of course, had led the anti-Treaty party during the Civil War and O’Higgins was the most dominant force in the Cumann na nGaedheal government which set up the Irish Free State after the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.

There were terrible wounds on both sides: the anti-Treatyites sought to destabilise the state, and were responsible for violence and burnings-out – about 200 ‘big houses’ were burned out, and priceless works of art destroyed as well as lives lost.  But the Free Staters could be brutally repressive and the executions of noted republicans like Rory O’Connor and Liam Mellows were bitterly remembered.

Mandate

The Church formally supported the Free State government, since the government did have an electoral mandate and it could validly claim to be “the proper authority” (St Paul exhorted Christians to accept the “proper authority”). But there were priests whose own sympathies were on both sides, too.

Msgr Pádraig de Brún, the Gaelic scholar and friend of Sean MacDiarmada (and uncle of Máire Cruise O’Brien) was among the most ardent of the clerics on the republican side. There was even a well-known priest, Fr O’Daly, who was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the IRB, although the clergy were forbidden to join secret societies.

But the clergy were divided, as the people had been. There were ardent Catholics on both sides, after all. De Valera and O’Higgins were both devout Catholics, both doing what they believed was right.

It took a long time to get over the experience of Civil War. It will not be an easy period of history to commemorate in 2022. And yet, it is, surely, a healing development that the political descendents of those Civil War parties could work together, today, in a coalition. ‘Todd’ Andrews may well be turning in his grave!

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I never knew St Patrick had a sister, but it appears he had two, according to Pádraig Ó Riain’s Dictionary of Irish Saints: one was called Lubaid, and the other was known as Liamhain, whose son was Neachtain of Fennor, in the barony of Duleek, Co. Meath, on the banks of the Boyne. Neachtan was a teacher and disciple, and was also known as Nathanus. His cult stretched as far as the Shannon estuary and his feast day is April 22.

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In this time of the pandemic, individuals frequently post grief-stricken messages on Twitter when they lose a family member or someone they love. This is often a parent or grandparent, but occasionally, the tragic death of a younger person is announced.

A mother posted a message earlier this week that her son had died (though she didn’t specify that it was the virus) and she was utterly devastated – as any mother would be. It was a very touching tribute. She added, with understandable heartache: “Life just isn’t fair.”

Indeed, it is not. I remember my own mother reciting the Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Queen) a prayer she loved, sometimes stressing that phrase that we are “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”.

Life is often nearer to a vale of tears than to a forum of fairness: though that doesn’t mean we should give up hope.