A few months ago, I had heard there were a lot of issues with children and adults alike being attacked by seagulls across Ireland. The term “epidemic” was thrown about, and the cause for national concern from the danger these birds held to society overall seemed quite serious.
One radio show traced the history of these evil seagulls in Ireland back to Cromwell. There’s a myth that Cromwell introduced magpies to Ireland, who in turn taught the seagulls to dive and swoop, an attribute they had not possessed before meeting these magpies. Why do Irish people always need to blame someone, whether it is Cromwell, the Catholic Church or our family, for our problems.
The two-year anniversary of my arrival in London has just passed. The time I have spent away from Ireland has allowed me to detach and grow in ways that would not have been possible had I stayed. I wanted to blame someone for why I was unhappy, why I didn’t have the dream career I wanted, and why it was so dark and rainy in Galway from October to February.
When I moved to London, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing or what to expect from leaving, but there was something inside me that kept telling me I needed to leave. At the time I repeatedly answered the why are you leaving question with “there are no jobs here, I have to leave. Our Government and those before have failed us as a generation.”
The truth was I hadn’t even been applying for jobs in Ireland. I didn’t bother because “there weren’t any to apply for” - an excuse that was completely untrue. The reality was I was stuck in a rut and I wanted to someone to blame for why I was so unhappy. For me it was the state of our country, and the Government that had allowed that to happen.
I have found the longer I am away, the more I become an individual, undefined by my nationality or by who I was two weeks ago, because my ability and potential to change and evolve is ongoing, which is true for every person. The blame culture that lies in the bones of Ireland is detrimental to the individual, who at times cannot find anyone to blame and then turns it on themselves.
It can be hard to see your own potential when you are busy trying to find a reason or a person to hold accountable for your current situation. Instead of trying to solve a problem, we just look for someone to blame, and talk about it for years to come.
“Do you remember when so and so wouldn’t give me the notes for that biology class and then I got a D in the leaving and couldn’t get into medicine…..?”
The blame culture will take time to fade. I have found it hard to let go of seeking people to blame. But I couldn’t have learned how to be master of my own destiny without leaving Ireland and being by myself in this daunting and overwhelming city.
