“Put on your coat, you’ll get pneumonia going out in that thing!”
Ireland’s estranged relationship with love
On Friday the 27th of December 2020, the nation settled into their armchairs for that weekly slice of normality served up by The Late Late Show. This time, the iconic Toy Show; the fate of which, had been hanging in the balance since mid-summer, due to the necessary restrictions imposed as a result of Covid-19. Since the onset of the pandemic, the weekly 120 minute show has provided a desperately needed platform for charities to make a plea for vital funding which they were losing out on, due to the cancellation of fundraising events. That particular Friday night, The RTÉ Toy Show Appeal was launched, in affiliation with the ‘Community Foundation of Ireland.’ Purses, wallets, old charity collection boxes, childhood piggy banks and biscuit tins across the country, were emptied of their contents in order to raise the extraordinary figure of 6.5 million euro for children’s charities. Whether we know it or not, we did this out of love.
‘Ah, love.’ I hear you sigh. Depending on the context, somehow the concept of love, in all of its various forms, is simultaneously both the bane and the elixir of life; am I right? Similar to the perdurable idiom more commonly used when referring to the male species; ‘you can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it.’ But what is the IQ of the land of Saints and Scholars when it comes to this multifaceted four letter word?
Grá, is the Irish translation for ‘affectionate love.’ Portrayed in a far less elaborate or performative manner to our Italian, French and American counterparts, the Irish has a somewhat estranged relationship with this term; but not the philanthropic aspect of it, if that makes sense. One only needs to dip their toes into the profoundly emotive history of Ireland, to see this. Ireland, as a nation, is one of unimaginable strength. Our ancestors suffered many great losses by means of famine, decades of sectarian violence and a sanguinary campaign for political freedom. The love that men and women had for our country and for more favourable living conditions for the next generation, was on countless occasions, demonstrated by means of the ultimate sacrifice.
On the other hand, romantic love in Ireland, for the majority, is played out behind a screen through the medium of ‘apps.’ Unless you’re lucky enough to have slipped through the gap just in time to avoid what is the now dating scene, you play a role in the over-saturated cesspit that makes no allowance for a good old-fashioned love story. No doubt, the virulent nature of this ‘people shopping’ trend has contributed to our already lacklustre approach to communication, and an inability to truly express ourselves through emotional vocabulary. Gone are the days of a drunken altercation and exchange of digits over a curry-cheese chip in dingy take-away. Everything about life as we know it, is prescriptive, pre-empted, measured and a far cry from romance. With regards to the unbridled turmoil that ensues when romantic love goes wrong, that’s another article entirely. When you ask the scientists, they’ll tell you about the left ventricle of the heart that experiences a paralysis, resulting in the rather unpleasant physical symptoms of nausea, shortness of breath and palpitations. However, no physician nor physicist, pharmacist nor psychiatrist can determine a definitive cure for what we call a remedy for the term we coin ‘heartbreak.’
Our humble nature, has almost made us allergic to the idea of being told that we are loved. In Ireland, we don’t say ‘I love you.’ For example, parental love, in most cases, comprises of an endless list of silent gestures; having the dinner on the table after standing for an hour and a half in the rain at your football match. It’s giving up their weekends to bring you to the Irish dancing competition. It’s carting you to a grind in all seven subjects, for the duration of your exam year. To put it simply, love is recognised as a verb, rather than a noun.
For a nation which is the final resting place for the remains of patron saint of love, Saint Valentine, the first country in the world to validate same-sex marriage by means of a popular vote, and the birthplace of the ever emotive ‘Claddagh’ symbol, yet many of us may find the motive of ‘love’ too emotionally charged or attention-inflicting, to acknowledge as the reasoning behind actions we take. The Irish man and woman will even find some way to trivialise the donation of an organ, brushing it off as though the gesture had the same significance as lending someone spare change for a bus fare. That said, now, more than ever our nation has been thrust into the limelight for outstanding acts of human sacrifice and untainted selflessness. In recent months, the human spirit has been maintained over a period of intense hardship and cross-carrying, solely through people’s willingness to tend to, and support the needs of some of societies’ most vulnerable people, including the elderly, the sick, and the homeless. Everyday heroes have been given their rightful place at the head of the table for answering the call to the frontline, of the war we fight against the coronavirus global pandemic.
A topic which will continue to bemuse, baffle and bewilder, but nonetheless, always has, and will continue to, provide a plot for some of the most timeless screenplays and memorable pieces of music that the world has ever seen. All I know for sure is this; nothing great is ever achieved without love, and as unwilling as we might be to verbalise this sentiment, no group of people know this to be more true, than the Irish.
