19 February 1998 Edition
Slán Padraig, a chara
By Laurence McKeown
Paddy McManus died last week. To his friends, family and loved ones I send my condolences. I didn't know Paddy well and yet his death came as a shock. I felt a sense of loss more so than I did when others much closer to me had died.
I think possibly it was because Paddy was so much of a gentleman. Strange word that, gentleman. I wonder does it have a different meaning across the water. I know that certainly when we say it we don't associate it with lords and ladies.
The Irish have a saying, a ``gentleman and a scholar''. It's a good saying. It conjures up the image of someone who is both wise and humble. Someone who realises that the more he knows the more he realises how ignorant he really is. Paddy to me was a gentleman and a scholar. He was ready to serve but never a servant.
Paddy had what I've called an impoverished look about him. I've never used that term to describe anyone else yet it seems to be the perfect adjective to sum up his appearence. Impoverished. Yet not a demeanour which prompted sympathy or, worse still, pity.
You got the impression from Paddy that he was really very shy. The type of person, like so many of the unsung heroes of this struggle, who work away in the backround, tirelessly, patiently, each day, every day. The problem is that it's only when they are no longer with us that we realise the terrible loss that their passing has inflicted. We wish for the opportunity to say that extra word, make that additional gesture, show our appreciation. But it's too late.
Apparently Paddy took ill on the day that a rally was being held outside the City Hall. The rally was organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, supposedly to protest at the most recent spate of killings and to call for peace. It was the sort of rally we are all too familiar with. The type that are called when the right thinking people feel they must be seen to be doing something. The type where people stand around and beat their breasts the correct number of times at a pre-determined moment in a practised manner, then utter cries of despair at the actions of the natives.
The natives that day thought they too could join in the calls for an end to the slaughter being waged against their community. Silly, naive, innocent natives. They didn't understand that at such rallies only voices from the platform will be heard. The words carefully selected, phrased in the proper language and spoken in reasonable and sensible tones so as not to alienate ``that other section of the community''.
The natives had got it wrong again. They thought that just anyone could join in. They had to learn the hard way that day, as always, with insult heaped on injury.
I have an image in my head of the type of person who attends such rallies. Their accents, the type of clothes they wear, the places they frequent, the friends they keep. It's not an image of impoverishment. Humanity is not a term you would ever apply to them. I think of them outside the City Hall with their arrogant, twisted faces, their sneers, their perfumed hankerchiefs held in leather clad manicured fingers close to their nostrils for fear the stench of too many dead nationalists would invade their senses.
And I think of Paddy lying ill inside the hall. And it hurts me. It hurts me that such a gentleman and a scholar had to endure for so many years the insults, abuse and downright bad manners of people like them who believe that they were born to rule and we were born to know our place. It's thanks to the work of Paddy and the other unsung heroes of our time that the comfy security in that belief has been well and truly shaken. Roll on the day when it crumbles to dust. Slán, slán Padraig, a chara.
Paddy McManus died last week. To his friends, family and loved ones I send my condolences. I didn't know Paddy well and yet his death came as a shock. I felt a sense of loss more so than I did when others much closer to me had died.
I think possibly it was because Paddy was so much of a gentleman. Strange word that, gentleman. I wonder does it have a different meaning across the water. I know that certainly when we say it we don't associate it with lords and ladies.
The Irish have a saying, a ``gentleman and a scholar''. It's a good saying. It conjures up the image of someone who is both wise and humble. Someone who realises that the more he knows the more he realises how ignorant he really is. Paddy to me was a gentleman and a scholar. He was ready to serve but never a servant.
Paddy had what I've called an impoverished look about him. I've never used that term to describe anyone else yet it seems to be the perfect adjective to sum up his appearence. Impoverished. Yet not a demeanour which prompted sympathy or, worse still, pity.
You got the impression from Paddy that he was really very shy. The type of person, like so many of the unsung heroes of this struggle, who work away in the backround, tirelessly, patiently, each day, every day. The problem is that it's only when they are no longer with us that we realise the terrible loss that their passing has inflicted. We wish for the opportunity to say that extra word, make that additional gesture, show our appreciation. But it's too late.
Apparently Paddy took ill on the day that a rally was being held outside the City Hall. The rally was organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, supposedly to protest at the most recent spate of killings and to call for peace. It was the sort of rally we are all too familiar with. The type that are called when the right thinking people feel they must be seen to be doing something. The type where people stand around and beat their breasts the correct number of times at a pre-determined moment in a practised manner, then utter cries of despair at the actions of the natives.
The natives that day thought they too could join in the calls for an end to the slaughter being waged against their community. Silly, naive, innocent natives. They didn't understand that at such rallies only voices from the platform will be heard. The words carefully selected, phrased in the proper language and spoken in reasonable and sensible tones so as not to alienate ``that other section of the community''.
The natives had got it wrong again. They thought that just anyone could join in. They had to learn the hard way that day, as always, with insult heaped on injury.
I have an image in my head of the type of person who attends such rallies. Their accents, the type of clothes they wear, the places they frequent, the friends they keep. It's not an image of impoverishment. Humanity is not a term you would ever apply to them. I think of them outside the City Hall with their arrogant, twisted faces, their sneers, their perfumed hankerchiefs held in leather clad manicured fingers close to their nostrils for fear the stench of too many dead nationalists would invade their senses.
And I think of Paddy lying ill inside the hall. And it hurts me. It hurts me that such a gentleman and a scholar had to endure for so many years the insults, abuse and downright bad manners of people like them who believe that they were born to rule and we were born to know our place. It's thanks to the work of Paddy and the other unsung heroes of our time that the comfy security in that belief has been well and truly shaken. Roll on the day when it crumbles to dust. Slán, slán Padraig, a chara.