STIOFÁN:
Will look, but would he like it if another foreign country set up home in his back yard ? I don’t think so.
Oh, I think it is a terrible thing to have one’s hospitality abused by businessmen.
We got off to a bad start on this forum. The moderator actually deleted a series of posts. Much thanks to him for that. Certain things get said without forethought or without care. And then they get responded to. But now we have started the discussion over. A little more carefully.
The thing is that the thread is about the laying down of arms. We have a chance here, Stiofan, to look forward. Are you unhappy with the laying down of arms? Are you afraid? What do people think in the north about the news?
STIOFÁN:
I could say things on this forum that would hurt a lot of people, but I’m being reserved.
Oh, I am sure we all know the language to get each other riled up. And as for being reserved, ah that has more to do with honour. It has much to do with faith in our people too. Enough faith to keep our lips buttoned over small things and to wax eloquent over the very large things.
STIOFÁN:
Anyway I haven’t posted lately, but someone putting their oar in where it’s not wanted rattles my cage.
So far, I have not had problems with Franze. His English is very Spanish, so sometimes he comes off a little abrupt. Maybe he is bringing the Basque experience to this discussion. Of course the Basque experience is not the Irish experience. He will learn that, if we give him links and tell him the stories.
STIOFÁN:
It’s the so called experts that come on here telling us what is best for us that annoys me no end, and you Ani know a lot, and Vern hunphrey has done his homework also.
Lack of respect for learning is certainly extremely annoying. Many people have some strange ideas about Ireland. Some of those people will be happy to replace those ideas with truly enlarging and beautiful ideas which are the truth.
STIOFÁN:
I better leave this discussion it frustrates me after living through 30 years of bombs and bullets, and the torture of the British and their cohorts.
I respect that. For Vern it was Nam. For me it was many things. We all have our stories, Stiofan. I owe much to my friend who died last month. She died peacefully in the arms of her family. We all have our ways of dying. But she taught me with her stories and with her example. Is it in the striving to be more than mere fragile flesh? Is it in the striving to hold onto something which others would take away?
There is a small town on Lake Huron. In the afternoon people come to the cafe and they play their whistles and fiddles. Gosh, Stiofan, there are many Irish here. Some of the music is very very old. The way people speak English you would think they were straight out of the Old Country instead of generations apart. In some regions they even speak Irish Gaelic. We all have our ways of dying. But we all have our ways of living too. Those who have lived and died with honour have stories told about them.
STIOFÁN:
If I get banned for this, so be it, but I won’t stand for people telling us what is best for us.
‘Us’ now extends all over the world. One never knows when I am going to stumble across a shining example of ‘us.’ We have proliferated. It is a miracle there is
anything left of our language, our culture, our stories. But they have not only survived but flourished.
STIOFÁN:
It’s so easy standing on the outside looking in, but try standing where we the tortured people of N,Ireland have stood, then some may see a different picture.
I never had a chance to stand with you, Stiofan. My family was part of the diaspora. We stood where we could. Outside the port of Toronto, the Irish died in droves while standing on the decks of their ships, hoping to land. Those that landed, huddled in freezing basements or got sent out as child labour. Or they were hanged in the market across from where I live.
Do you write, Stiofan?