Postcards from a New Republic

Willa and Lucy are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. The house is bedecked in plants and flowers from top to toe and the children are besides themselves with excitement. Young Banba and Alroy have spent the last month making the most gorgeous decorative bunting from recycled paper now strung from the ceiling of every room in the house.

Afric, who operates a popular upcycling business out of her Mams’ garage, has replicated the little one’s colourful fiesta theme on the chairs and tables now laid out in the back garden. Their eldest James is due home after a few months away working on a specialist farm. ‘Finally’, thinks Lucy’s Mam Eileen who lives with the family, a full house. 

‘Come on kids’, shouts Eileen, ‘Time to get your glad rags on. Your Mams’ will be back from the hairdresser any minute now’. Afric lands into the kitchen with a sibling in each hand. ‘Look at the state of them Nana!’ Eileen looks down at Banba and Alroy who are covered head to toe in glue, glitter, and scraps of colourful paper. ‘Mother of God’, she exclaims with a big grin. ‘Right, upstairs with the pair of you and we’ll get you all cleaned up’ says Eileen, and ‘Afric, will you hold off getting ready until we’re finished in case anyone arrives early’. Afric gives her Nana a hug and heads back out into the garden. 

Just as Afric starts to doze off in the afternoon sun, she hears her brother’s booming voice shouting thank you to the driver as the town bus pulls away from the house. Personal cars have been banned for years now due to energy shortages. Afric charges through the house, out the front door and throws her arms around her older brother James. ‘Jesus wept’; she says. ‘When was the last time you had a shower?’ ‘That’s the smell of hard work sis, you should try it sometime’. 

‘So big brother, how the hell are you’ asks Afric. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t written to us once since you headed off. Everyone’s been asking for you, and the crowd at the Big Feed are barely able to manage without you’. The Big Feed is the town’s communal garden on which most of the community rely for their meat, fruit and veg. ‘I won’t lie’ says James, ‘it’s been tough’. 

Afric squeezes her brother’s hand. She knows how committed and connected he is to the environment. James was inconsolable when the honey bees were declared globally extinct. Despite the eradication of all pesticides and herbicides and massive public investment in millions of hectares of native forests, woodlands, and wildflowers, the generations of damage to the developed world’s biodiversity simply could not be reversed. Solitary bees were the first to fall with the honey bees shortly after. The gorgeous European bee-eater bird has all but disappeared and once common fruits such as cherries and blueberries have become an exotic rarity. Whole ecosystems have been lost and damaged. For years, people had asked what would happen if all the bees died. Now, there is a real chance that we might just find out. 

James is studying biodiversity-based agriculture. He has spent the last few months on a specialist farm that is developing technologies and processes to mitigate the unavoidable losses of biodiversity and new methods of farming that will protect, sustain and maintain existing food sources. These publicly funded projects have made Ireland the forerunner in the fight for world’s biodiversity. Following the unification of the Ireland, sustainability has been championed by every republican government, and now countries across the globe are looking to us to shape their public policy responses to climate change and to halt the rapid decline of the world’s biodiversity. 

‘You know you are making a real difference, right?’ James sighs, and then gives Afric an affectionate smirk. ‘I know sis. It’s just the sense of loss, and the task ahead can sometimes be overwhelming. But then I remind myself of the advances we’re making and changes we’ve all adapted to. I know I’m lucky…’. Before James can finish his sentence, their glammed-up Mammies are in the garden shrieking with joy at the sight of their grown up son. Afric rolls her eyes, and with a wry smile mumbles, ‘Don’t mind me, I’ll just go slaughter the fatted calf for the prodigal son’. 

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