Gazing into the past at my windowsill

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

I was standing up against the windowsill of my house in a West Kerry village two Sundays ago. The sky overhead was pure blue. Crows were flying from one chimney top to the next, perching on television aerials.  A wagtail was metres away from me. 

The house door was open and I thought the bird might be about to enter. But no, it had found a crumb on the ground, which it nibbled at for a while. 

I must have moved, and off it flew, up on to the roof and away. Because it was early on Sunday morning there was little or no traffic passing. The tourist season was over.

 

I’m told my grandaunt was noted for sitting outside this same house. What would she and her siblings, her parents and grandparents say if they came back as ghosts to the village where they once lived?

I remember standing up against the windowsill of the same house with my father and our next door neighbour approximately 30 years ago.

 

My next door neighbour was a very witty man, a character. He had a great turn of phrase. Many of his one-liners are still quoted in the village. 

It appeared all his friends were millionaires. But on that particular day when we were talking at the windowsill he began to regale my father and me about some friend of his and then, with no bother, told both of us that this particular friend was a billionaire. My immediate reaction was to say to myself, the economy must be banjaxed. Some years later we were in financial crisis.

Naturally leaning up against the windowsill on a quiet Sunday morning with no-one about I was thinking of the passing of generations. My paternal grandparents were born in this house shortly after the famine. The church on the main street was built in 1831.

We’ve come a long way since then. We’ve made extraordinary progress in every aspect of our lives. 

Are we happier? I have no idea but I do know that the medical help that I have received in recent weeks would not have been possible, there would have been no electricity here, no high speed fibre connections, no running water, no sewerage, no cars, no processed food.

The day before I stood at my windowsill the funeral of a Dominican colleague took place in Tallaght. I watched the funeral Mass on the webcam. At the Mass the provincial spoke about how Fr Philip McShane would now know the answers to all the questions he asked during his life as a teacher of philosophy and theology.

From birth to death isn’t life one long intriguing mystery? If there were no God question, I for one would miss it, I think.

Everything about living is nuanced, speaking about God is nuanced. All our words are but tiny reflections about reality. And our words are always influenced by the time and place we live.

Forty-seven years ago we could hear in this village the sonic boom as Concorde broke the sound barrier flying out over the Atlantic, 37 years before that there was a train from here to Tralee. We know something of the past. What do we know of the future?