AH, Christmas and New Years have that way of putting the whole year in a sharp focus, don’t they?
We all have a little bit of free time to cast our minds back on the 12 months just gone and ask ourselves – how did we do?
The answer will be different for all of us. Some of us will have made great strides. Some of us will find ourselves struggling, perhaps with empty places at the dinner table this Christmas. Some of us will look back and question if we achieved anything at all, we might be feeling stagnant and in need of a change.
Personally, it was one of those extremely busy years in middle life where so much happened that I can barely keep track. We had a monumental year in our business, launching a new show on BBC and RTÉ.
The kids continue to grow up at an exponential rate, the years now feeling like they are slipping through my hands like sand. And we have only gone and ripped up our whole back garden for the winter in a quest for a kitchen
that’s beyond three square metres.
I’ll miss our tiny kitchen with its multiple nooks and hooks that I designed myself on the Ikea website 10 years ago.
It has served us so well when we were going through the honeymoon of moving into our own house and then nesting and preparing for the life-changing joy and overwhelm brought on by little kids arriving.
We knew the time was right to invest again this year, all families go through it, and the kids are getting to an age where we will all need a little more space.
But I find myself stumbling towards the finishing line, to be honest. The winter has had its way with me – we are out of our house with the renovations happening and I have felt completely all over the place.
If 2024 was a year of enterprise and progress, I am beginning to secretly pine for a year of renewal and reflection in 2025. Before the whole thing passes me by. Slow down world, let me off for a few months!
I’m only writing all this because I know you all probably feel the same, albeit at different stages of the journey, especially at this time of year.
And we all hope for a happy and peaceful time so we can get to enjoy the fruits of our labour over the Christmas holidays.
So I will be most definitely trying to switch off over the coming days.
From work, from social media, from it all – you should too.
Looking back on the columns this year, I see it’s been a fairly frantic one. We began the year by ushering in the era of the TikTok Taoiseach. For a while it was like Simon could do no wrong but Fine Gael had a less-than-perfect election.
We face into 2025 with a coalition most likely made up of FFG and a small side-basket of independents. There is very little progress made on the housing crisis.
All of us are struggling to pay for the basics with inflation outpacing wage growth like something trained in a stud by Willie Mullins.
The vote was a largely centrist one in a time of political extremism but don’t expect that trend to continue if the fundamental issues facing the younger cohort aren’t seen to be addressed.
The real risks are what Donald Rumsfeld once called the Unknown Unknowns – the things even Fintan O’Toole doesn’t know about. Things are looking extremely dicey in Germany and France with politics looking more and more schizophrenic every week.
Germany has a snap election on the way in early 2025. France is at a stalemate with Le Pen rubbing her hands together at the thought of the next presidential election. Trump has stacked up his White House with what appears to be the cast from a Police Academy movie. The Middle East is in a state of chaos and tragedy not seen in decades.
In so many ways, it feels like it’s been a terrible year for the world, but it is at times like this we need to remember the words of the famous poem – when all around you are losing their heads, there’s a lot to be said for knuckling down and staying the course.
Stick with what you believe in and try your best to affect the small circle of influence you have in your own life, in the best way you can.
There are so many things that are out of our control, so we should only focus on the things we can control, and on the things we can be thankful for. Having grown up in Ireland in the 1980s, I have a strong and growing sense of what we have all achieved as a community in the intervening years.
It’s one of the best countries in the world with some of the best people. West Cork is exemplary in this regard – a small, strong garden of paradise confronting the stormy seas. Let’s always mind each other.
Happy Christmas, West Cork.
