Are we a land of a thousand welcomes?

This week’s Mediauis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

‘That They May Face  the Rising Sun' is a film adaptation of John McGahern’s novel. His mother died when he was 10 and his father was violent and physically abusive to his children. 

The young McGahern won a scholarship on his Leaving Cert results, which allowed him to train to be a primary school teacher in St Patrick’s College of Education in Dublin. He later studied at UCD and became a secondary school teacher and also taught at third level. 

Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid, had him dismissed from his teaching job. He considered McGahern’s novel ‘The Dark’ a work of ‘pornographic depravity’. It meant he was unemployable, he went to England for a time, working on building sites.

McGahern’s early years is a story of not belonging. A cruel place to be. Maybe something that can haunt us all our lives. So often we keep it hidden, afraid to mention it. 

The film is about life in rural Ireland in the mid-to late 20th century. It is about belonging.

The Ruttledges, a young sophisticated couple come to live in the village. He is Irish and a writer and she is probably German, an artist by trade. They are a kind couple, who fit in well in their new surroundings. 

They manage to be part of the small community. They find it easy to belong. 

Life beats its daily drum and the locals like and admire their new neighbours. They involve them in the daily gossip.

Home on holidays, John comes to visit the Ruttledges on a bicycle and just as he arrives at their cottage he bumps into an old friend. They are delighted to meet. They embrace. John feels in that moment he belongs in the village.

He is working in England with Fords. He gives that outward expression of being a happy punter, easygoing, who is enjoying the new bright lights of England, and the money too. He eventually loses his job with Fords. He thinks he can return and move back to his own place. But, no, there’s no place for him back in the old home. He dies a relatively young man. Everyone in the village pays their respects. 

Never a mention that there was no room for him when he was in need of one. Are they ashamed of their behaviour? I imagine it’s a dark secret, not to be spoken about.

John’s experience must haunt the Irish psyche, those who left and never felt at home when they left Ireland, felt strangers when they returned, belonging nowhere.

What about those, who today are forced to leave their homes under appalling conditions, leaving behind families and friends, turning their backs on the familiar? 

We pride ourselves as being the land of a thousand welcomes. Now when we have been called to do just that, it’s our privilege to welcome those who are in need. 

How would McGahern read, indeed, write about the present situation? I can imagine he would want people, whoever they are to feel at home, to belong here. Isn’t that what we all want for ourselves.  ‘Do unto others….’