I Vote For Spring!

West from Bunglas, once a happy hunting ground of mine!

Fiona and I just happily found ourselves back in a Donegal cottage, courtesy of Mick McGinley and his son Michael. The grass about Teelin was burnt yellow with sea-salt, the hills sodden and blasted, but then the sun came out. Climbing a knoll beside the road to Bunglas on the morning we left, laid out before us was Donegal Bay at its most magnificent, all calm and shimmering in the spring sunshine. It came with frost in the morning, but how magic a transformation from the sullen grey aspect that it had worn two days before!

Where we stayed, and Mick's herd of Dexter cattle.

We spent long hours recalling bygone days with old fishing mates, and with the 93 year-old mother of a young man who tragically fell off the deck of my boat in 1984, drowning before our eyes. She has also lost her two daughters to cancer since, but she betrays no bitterness in her bright eyes, though she will tell you how the people may have poorer in her young days, but they were happier. However sometimes suffering can nourish faith, which is badly needed in a community like that. It may be surrounded by much natural beauty, but one cannot escape the feeling of being on the sharp end of life there.

The times have not been good to those parts lately. In the 1970s, there were about fifty men in those two parishes of Carrick and Glencolmkille fishing herring, salmon and lobsters in small boats. The main earners, salmon and herring, are completely gone, as indeed have the cod and turbot fisheries that we moved on to. How come? ‘Overfishing’ is the usual answer, but that is a vast over-simplification. The salmon fishery for example has been closed for ten years now, with little sign of improvement in the stock. Hard for salmon to thrive in rivers full of e-coli! Neither have whitefish stocks recovered from a long rest, which we attribute to the fact that the stocks of herring and scad on which they feed have also been decimated.

If you don't believe me, ask Mick McGinley!

‘Bad management’ is nearer the mark, but while a lot of things on land and sea called for management, in the case of herring what measures were taken, too late, were sabotaged with the connivance of corrupt politicians. Cutting a long story short, while the stocks were decimated, the industry both at sea and on land was concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy people. In the latest twist, the factories where many of the fishermen had to find work have been automated, so that only a fraction of the former work-force are required. This development was assisted with large grants of public money. As Mick said, maybe we can’t stop automation, but why should we help pay for it?

It all adds up to a neat illustration to the way in which chunks of the population have been impoverished, individuals and governments alike have been drowned in debt, while huge piles of cash have been accumulated by some, frequently off-shore. These don’t seem to be happy either, since it has got difficult to find worthwhile ways of investing said piles of cash, on account of the dwindling spending power at large, plus the general lack of confidence that such tensions bring about….

One hurries home to vote, on the basis that what one does not use one might lose, and it is no doubt satisfying to vote against those with whom one is currently particularly fed up. It would be more satisfying if any of the politicians seemed capable of helping to change things. I do believe that, like the brave green shoots that are pushing up through the burnt and blasted old grass, a new world is struggling to be born.

On the bus past Ben Bulben.

It is a good thing in a way that the huge institutions no longer provide for safe and secure investments. Now is the time for families and friends to find ways of working together, making a new way of life. Let the young go off to cities, to make some money out of the big beasts and see the way the world wags, but  let them do it in much the same spirit as previous generations went to war. May they find ways of harnessing wealth to their own initiatives, overcoming the alienation that ensues from the worship of money and technology!

Niall's forge.

It will frequently be an uncomfortable and risky business, but that’s the way with creativity. Perhaps that’s why some of us see the abortion issue in Ireland as a pretty good touchstone for the sort of politicians that we really need; ones who will promote rather than impede this awkward new world that is struggling to be born!

Rathlin O'Birne Island, where I saw two fine trawlers reduced to drift-wood.

 Photos courtesy of Fiona.