In Search of a Genuine Voice of the People.

This early autumn weather in Sherkin is glorious. Finally the sun has got the better of all that melted ice-water, and the prevailing breeze off the Atlantic has lost its chill. I love to start the fine mornings by gathering some blackberries for breakfast. One never knows what treats there may be on the bushes along with the swelling berries - the sun lighting the dew-drops on a most exquisite spider’s web, or warming a pair of peacock butterflies as they spread their gorgeous wings to its warmth.

    The building is going on well, especially since Jean-Paul started to give a hand. He is one of those people who can turn their hand to anything practical. I mean no unkindness at all - on the contrary it is one of the highest compliments that I can pay someone - when I say that he is a true peasant. Perhaps that is why he prefers to live in Sherkin to his native country. France, one might like to imagine, should be the Mecca of all true peasants; but alas, the sophisticated, over-educated bourgeoisie has got the upper hand there as it has throughout the West, and not least here in Ireland.

    A true peasant to my mind is someone to whom it is natural to undertake the primary businesses of living themselves, insofar as is practical. They like to feed, house, clothe and to entertain themselves; indeed for them, the very division of life into work and play tends to disappear. They are practical, thrifty and rooted, and the antithesis of your ideal consumer; independent and self-reliant, yet well able to cooperate with their neighbours and look after each other, and they celebrate their traditions.

Gael's photo of J-P at work on the Anna M's engine

   J-P is full of stories about the way things used to be done in Brittany, where he grew up, especially with reference to food of course! But he reminds me of very different children of the old peasantry, whom it has been my privilege to encounter. Fiona and I went looking for them, mind, especially when we went to live in Glencolumbkille, Co Donegal. We were not disappointed, and learnt a great deal from our neighbours and men like AndyJohnieAndy, John Maguire and Anthony Boyle. But the person who began my re-education from an over-intellectual, bourgeois upbringing, was from a cottage now on the very fringe of Tallaght, Dublin, which has swollen out to nearly engulf it.

    I first got chatting to Rory Dunbar one sunny day on the roof of the Simon Community in Liverpool, where we found ourselves trying to fix a few leaks together. It was in those innocent days of 1960s when one could get up to all sorts of high-jinks which concerns about safety, insurance and all that have since put a stop to. Fiona and I were helping to run the place, but Rory, provided he was sober at the time, knew a whole lot more about things like fixing the roof than clueless me!

    At the foot of the Dublin Mountains when he grew up they had just got electricity, ahead of most of rural Ireland, but still cut turf for fuel, grew vegetables, and even had to draw water from a pump. He showed up in our lives from time to time until his death, especially when there was building to be done, and we both learnt a lot from him, myself especially about building, and Fiona from stories about how his mother used to manage with basic domestic facilities. He was also full of stories, poetry (Kavanagh and Yeats) and song. Both wisdom and joy spring from taking up with the physical basics of life, which provide a spring-board for genuine intellectual life also. Mind you, it has to be said that all these guys tended to be haunted by the sense that the basis of their way of life had been torn away from them!

    Nonetheless, I grew in the conviction that the Catholic Church owes much of her charm for me in the unique reconciliation she offers of the spiritual with the physical sides of life. By their fruits shall ye know them, however; it is a good test of any religion, culture or way of life to observe their effects in the physical world, in buildings and art and culture. To my mind the most attractive cultures in the world are the Catholic ones; but anyway, in considering any perplexity, a good place to start is with a measured assessment of the physical facts of the matter!

    Alas, on this scale of values, contemporary culture scores very badly. As the Psalmist says Their hearts are astray…. These people do  not know my ways…. I took an oath in my anger, never shall they enter  my rest! Yes indeed, the Lord is merciful and kind, but His anger is too often inclined to be underestimated these days. If you don’t like such language, let’s just say that Nature will have her revenge.

     So, even as we pray to God in His mercy to spare us from complete calamity, it seems to me that a bright thing to do is to live in terms of constructing a peasant culture for the Post-Industrial Age. And if anyone should be so foolish as to want to do anything in the political line these days, they might do worse than to found a Peasants’ Party. It just might turn out to be an effective riposte to the obnoxious demagogues that are afflicting the democracies today!

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Photos by Fiona, except Gael's from 2012.