Wild Ways

“Rain, rain go away… ” I am glad that an RTÉ broadcaster last week didn’t continue the ditty, for “Come again another day” is the last thing we want to happen short term.

What a week or two we had last month and it hasn’t only been the weather that has us on our knees, not only in prayer but in submission to fate.
I think all of us have been shocked by what is happening on many fronts. But let us initially consider the weather. Firstly, I offer my own experiences. Grania, my wife, has been wonderfully looked after in hospital getting therapy following a rather nasty operation.
This meant, as she had Saturdays and Sundays free, much travel by both of us over the major flooded areas of the plains north of Gort and south of the main Galway to Ballinasloe area. As also with other areas, mainly Clare, Cork, Limerick City, North Tipperary, North and South Galway and later, parts of Leinster, we have been horrified with the suffering inflicted.
Farmers with their homes central to their farmlands, which allow them to produce often-meagre incomes, are spending weeks under water, their animals needing fodder and their furniture and other property, even their sole means of transport, denied them.
In many cases, they have welcomed charity, something few people do lightly, to provide sustenance to man and beast, to have clean, dry clothes and to provide transport. Although poor old Ireland is in really frightening doldrums already, these innocent people are being crushed by recent circumstances.
Many of us may conclude that there is nothing good coming out of all this. We are wrong if we do. Only a few weeks ago I wrote on the significance of the community, both in rural and urban Ireland. My words have been backed by the extraordinary generosity of the Irish people when times are raw. Those who have been fortunate in recent weeks have rallied round their suffering neighbours. Some groups such as St Vincent de Paul and the IFA have generously banded together to supply anything needed.
By the same token, individuals, lead by concerned experts in their fields such as carpenters, mechanics and plasterers have offered, free of charge, to volunteer their time and effort to ease the plight of the affected. Neighbours with and without tractors, JCBs, other machinery and boats have merely discarded concerns for their own discomforts, and “rolled up their sleeves”. They really have been wonderful.
I thank God that, although it faces over a lake, our house is above the flood plain. We have, though, been marooned, as our lakeside causeway, which leads to several houses, many permanently lived in, has been impassable unless by extra high tractors or boats. Grania has, as a consequence, been stuck mainly in Galway, with her car, while mine with its temporally limited distance capacity, is behind the house.
It is really frightening how very necessary our freedom is and the ability to be self supporting and not reliant on other people. However, we have wonderful neighbours and friends who have been outstandingly generous in providing me with tractor ferries and car trips onwards for necessities, sometimes using a canoe to reach their vehicles on the “mainland” in order to collect our post and essentials. In fact, and this is the positive circumstance, we have bonded together as never before.
We all also recognise how reliant we are on each other. Having taken five and a half hours to drive to Galway when the roads from Scariff to Feakle, Flagmount, Caher and Portumna were impassable, as was Gort and Loughrea on the worst day before being cut off, I realise how lucky we are.

BLACK SPOT
I re-iterate the stupidity of building alongside rivers, on flood plains or beside the sea (where future tsunamis could bring devastation), a black spot to all who have been responsible.
GOOD MARK
Those who have excelled by giving necessities and help during the recent floods. Volunteers and public servants rallied to help their neighbours by unblocking hindered rapids, nursing and comforting adults and children and by guiding travellers, amongst other tasks.
WEEK’S TIP
Everybody should take note of what has happened these past weeks and store this information for future use, such as where to build or how to provide emergency services.