Is there anything more boring than listening to someone blabbing on about their home renovations? Well, you’ll be relieved to know, ladies and gentleman, that it ends this week because even though it took six whole months to put a small box on a terraced house, we are finally in!
Now, it remains a work in progress. The garden looks like Putin tried to make friends with it, there are still holes in the wall where sockets should be, and the hob isn’t connected to electricity yet and cannot be run on the power of hope, although I’ve tried. To top it off, the doors and windows that took so very long to arrive - Katy Perry could have been to space and back a thousand times - are sort of fitted and agree to open with some gentle persuasion. Whether we can get the window company back to finish the job might be one of those enduring mysteries, like who kidnapped Shergar or who put the figs in the fig roll.
We are in and thankful. There are plenty struggling to find a home at all in this dysfunctional system, and given how frustrating it’s been for us, I have very little faith in its ability to magic up fifty thousand new homes a year.
I now see those Room To Improve closing interviews in a new light, the husband staring into the middle distance like he’s returned from the Somme while the wife weeps ‘tears of joy. They are not tears of joy. They are tears of exhaustion, and of bank accounts drained and sanity stretched.
They said we’d be in for Christmas. In the end, it was an Easter miracle that we got in before summer!
We made it to Easter Sunday mass on Griffith Avenue for one of our occasional trips to church. Because our children get only broad, multi-denominational religious education, we’ve chosen to introduce them to their religious heritage, even if we’re not exactly dyed-in-the-wool supporters.
Younger me wouldn’t have countenanced this, but I felt I didn’t have the right to cut ties on hundreds of years of tradition just because I was dismayed by the institution. It’s fair to say we’re light touch, and you could argue hypocritical, but I stopped caring about dogmatic arguments from either anti-religious zealots or Holy Joes a long time ago.
The next day came news that Pope Francis had passed away. Watching the RTÉ documentary on his life, I was reminded of just how little I knew about him and how rare it now seems to have a global figure who appears fundamentally decent.
In a time when many leaders resemble either game show hosts or Bond villains, Francis seemed an exception: a man who radiated humility. He asked to be buried simply in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a modest gesture from a man who led with gentleness. That example is something I’m happy to pass along to my children.
Conor and Carlson
If you want inspiration that might drive you back to traditional institutions of moral authority, look no further than Conor McGregor and Tucker Carlson at Freemasons’ Hall in Dublin, the spiritual equivalent of a measles outbreak. McGregor recorded a 55-minute interview with Carlson, sparking uproar once it aired. I have no idea what they discussed: the usual cocktail of anti-immigration rhetoric and unsubstantiated Internet conspiracy theories, one would presume.
The Freemasons, who generally prefer to stay out of the limelight and have apparently designed secret handshakes to avoid this eventuality, claimed not to have known who was actually coming when a US media company made the booking.
They later issued an apology, donated the rental fee to charity, and disappeared back into the woodwork like Homer Simpson retreating into a hedge. ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ is one of their most famous mottos. I’m sure the irony isn’t lost on them.
Resurrection on the pitch
The real resurrection story this Easter weekend came from Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Cusack Park. In football, Cork and Kerry delivered a Munster semi-final for the ages.
It was a match filled with drama that unfortunately ended in yet another moral victory, even if Cork looked to have the league champions on the ropes on many occasions.
Meanwhile, in hurling, there was another thrilling draw in Ennis that recalled the excitement of last year’s All-Ireland final, with the Banner men making the comeback this time against a classy looking Cork. I was so inspired I renewed my GAA+ subscription.
There’s lots of worrying stuff in the news these days, and I realise not all of you might be GAA fans, but it’s certainly putting a spring in my step, thinking of long summer evenings ahead with the rebels back in form. Fachtna was on WhatsApp before the end of the game.
Hope was mentioned.
