19 June 1997 Edition
Nor meekly serve me lamb
By Laurence McKeown
There was no other traffic on the road. It was early morning. The sun was behind me making for pleasant driving. The prospect of a warm sunny day lay ahead though the air still held a sharp nip.
My mind was elsewhere as I slowed to pass the sheep grazing by the roadside. Usually they never present a problem as they wander along oblivious to human intrusion on their patch but it's that very oblivion I have always been wary of. What if one of them just turned into the roadway in front of me? Thoughts like that were in my mind as I approached them. It was then I noticed that one was lying out onto the roadway a little. Strange, I thought, as normally they lie on the grassy verge. It was a small sheep, a lamb really, and as I passed I suddenly realised that it had no head. Where a head should be there was now only a bloody stump. Another sheep stood beside the dead one. The mother perhaps? I wondered if she was puzzling, as I had been, why her offspring should be lying on the road, still, unmoving. Death brings disbelief.
I drove on but found myself continually looking in the rear-view mirror until the bumps and dips in the road finally obscured my vision. I rounded a corner and the Poisoned Glen lay before me in all its majesty. Its slopes, catching the early morning sunshine, displayed its various hues of colour. The lake below glistened. And I felt a deep, deep depression.
A juggernaut rumbled by, its sharply defined features so incongruous with the landscape, its size so ill-suited to the narrow roadways it traversed. I wondered if it had been a metal monster such as that which had so abruptly ended a life by the roadside. I raged at its bulk, its power, its arrogance, its violent trespassing on sacred grounds. Yet who am I to curse the modern equivalent of the horse and cart? If I couldn't have a pint in Donegal pulled from a keg that had been brought all the way from Dublin would I not be among the first to complain? And what of the exotic foods in the restaurants? Would I make do instead with a locally baked soda farl made from locally ground flour? It's nice to be politically correct - until it hurts us.
Thoughts of compromise were prompted by the realisation of such contradictions. I wondered if perhaps the sheep could not be fenced in, thus ensuring their safety and protection. We, the travelling public (and tourists), would also be spared gruesome sights such as I had witnessed. Creating special roadways for the juggernauts would be a non-starter as that would mean spoiling the scenery. The scenery that we like to look at. Maybe one solution would be to build special enclosures to house the sheep and thus keep them away from humans altogether. Yes, that would do. And could we please drop the word `lamb' from the menus (change it to whatever) as it's unsavoury to be reminded that the small, playful, woolly creatures we see on the drive up to the restuarant could be siblings of what (whom) we are about to eat.
My thoughts turn to a short story where a young boy watches as the sheep on his farm are slaughtered. It's that time of the year. Initially the boy has sympathy for the sheep and the fate that is about to befall them but this then turns to anger when he sees how docile the sheep are, walking meekly to their deaths. I think I can now understand that story better. Funny how the passive and innocent can prompt such thoughts of rage in us.
There was no other traffic on the road. It was early morning. The sun was behind me making for pleasant driving. The prospect of a warm sunny day lay ahead though the air still held a sharp nip.
My mind was elsewhere as I slowed to pass the sheep grazing by the roadside. Usually they never present a problem as they wander along oblivious to human intrusion on their patch but it's that very oblivion I have always been wary of. What if one of them just turned into the roadway in front of me? Thoughts like that were in my mind as I approached them. It was then I noticed that one was lying out onto the roadway a little. Strange, I thought, as normally they lie on the grassy verge. It was a small sheep, a lamb really, and as I passed I suddenly realised that it had no head. Where a head should be there was now only a bloody stump. Another sheep stood beside the dead one. The mother perhaps? I wondered if she was puzzling, as I had been, why her offspring should be lying on the road, still, unmoving. Death brings disbelief.
I drove on but found myself continually looking in the rear-view mirror until the bumps and dips in the road finally obscured my vision. I rounded a corner and the Poisoned Glen lay before me in all its majesty. Its slopes, catching the early morning sunshine, displayed its various hues of colour. The lake below glistened. And I felt a deep, deep depression.
A juggernaut rumbled by, its sharply defined features so incongruous with the landscape, its size so ill-suited to the narrow roadways it traversed. I wondered if it had been a metal monster such as that which had so abruptly ended a life by the roadside. I raged at its bulk, its power, its arrogance, its violent trespassing on sacred grounds. Yet who am I to curse the modern equivalent of the horse and cart? If I couldn't have a pint in Donegal pulled from a keg that had been brought all the way from Dublin would I not be among the first to complain? And what of the exotic foods in the restaurants? Would I make do instead with a locally baked soda farl made from locally ground flour? It's nice to be politically correct - until it hurts us.
Thoughts of compromise were prompted by the realisation of such contradictions. I wondered if perhaps the sheep could not be fenced in, thus ensuring their safety and protection. We, the travelling public (and tourists), would also be spared gruesome sights such as I had witnessed. Creating special roadways for the juggernauts would be a non-starter as that would mean spoiling the scenery. The scenery that we like to look at. Maybe one solution would be to build special enclosures to house the sheep and thus keep them away from humans altogether. Yes, that would do. And could we please drop the word `lamb' from the menus (change it to whatever) as it's unsavoury to be reminded that the small, playful, woolly creatures we see on the drive up to the restuarant could be siblings of what (whom) we are about to eat.
My thoughts turn to a short story where a young boy watches as the sheep on his farm are slaughtered. It's that time of the year. Initially the boy has sympathy for the sheep and the fate that is about to befall them but this then turns to anger when he sees how docile the sheep are, walking meekly to their deaths. I think I can now understand that story better. Funny how the passive and innocent can prompt such thoughts of rage in us.