There is an intoxicating alienation in moving house. You long for something tangible of the old which is adaptable to the new. And this, albeit multiplied by several billions, is perhaps something like what we, the human family, will experience on the first day of the new millennium, facing the vast expanse of new time and possibilities. (Please don't write in to say that the millennium doesn't start until January 1st 2001; I don't care.)
The hope, the intention, the heart's desire of The Whoseday Book is to become to the spirit of a people, that token of acknowledgment of a common sense of hopeful displacement. It is neither a bus timetable nor a Yellow Pages, nor the menu from the nearest Indian takeaway. But in a sense it is all of these and a prayerbook as well.
The Whoseday Book is a souvenir, a talisman, an oasis, an antidote, a momentary respite, a spiritual Kit-Kat, a point of contact, a little something of the familiar to take with us beyond.
It may also turn out to offer the only way of marking the millennium that doesn't involve drinking your head off. The Whoseday Book is a unique millennium project organised by the Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) with the additional highly practical purpose of collecting money for hospice care. Published by the IHF, which has set up a dedicated publishing operation for the purpose, The Whoseday Book has been made possible through significant corporate donations as a result of which all of the cover price will go directly to the cause of hospice care. Simply put, The Whoseday Book is a kind of diary for the year 2000 and an anthology of Irish art and writing combined. The essential idea is that 366 (the year 2000 being a leap year) leading Irish writers, artists and public figures have each been invited to take a page, i.e. one day in the year 2000, which they have marked with an image or piece of their writing. To begin with, it seemed like a tall order, but through the efforts of project co-ordinator Eileen Pearson and IHF chairwoman, Marie Donnelly, the pages have now been filled. And while no claim is being made that everyone who should be in the book is in the book - or even that everyone who is in the book should be in the book - the list of contributors is an impressive approximation of the pantheon of contemporary Irish creativity. And just as those who have been included are there as representatives of their people and their place, it is hoped that those who are not there but might have been or should be will see the book as containing their work in spirit. The word "Whoseday" is a coalition of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but with the unconditional support of the other four days. Whoseday is a new day, a familiar but renewed day, a no particular day, an everyday day. Whoseday is a way to make each day at once special and familiar. Some of the glittering names in The Whoseday Book are: Seamus Heaney (also the book's Patron and towering inspiration), Frank McCourt, Christy Nolan, Bono, Martin McDonogh, Edna O'Brien, John Hume, Maeve Binchy, Roddy Doyle, Bob Geldof and Bertie Ahern. Contributors were not offered specific days but preferences were allowed on a first-come, first-served basis. Most opted not to nominate any particular day, but were allocated days appropriate to the content of their respective contributions.
Potential contributors were told that their contribution might consist of a poem, a drawing, a piece of prose, a thought, a word, a memory, a story, a photograph, a snatch of dialogue, indeed anything they desired that was remotely short of impossible to execute in a postcard-sized space. The result of these strict injunctions has produced a dizzying range of shades and textures. Contributions were submitted in word and image, in Irish and English, in double-spaced handwriting and on computer disk. Christy Moore offered the lyrics of a song he wrote as a tribute to Veronica Guerin; John Hume reproduced a passage from a speech he made more than 20 years ago, in which he outlined the possibility of a settlement to the Northern conflict along the lines now falling into place; Enya gave a beautifully handwritten version of the music of Silent Night; Ruairi Quinn wrote a tribute to Seamus Mallon; Bono described the chaos of his heart in the moment before he walks on stage; The Edge offered a list of Things to Do. Contributors were encouraged, if they so wished, to abandon their normal pursuits and migrate to other forms, and not a few have chosen so to do. Prose writers, who might have thought themselves constrained by the fact that the maximum length of contributions was 150 words, often turned this into a virtue by suggesting a favourite paragraph or sentence from their own work. Many, however, gave things prepared specifically for The Whoseday Book.
The result, as I say, is a kind of diarycum-anthology-cum-prayerbook, with a daily journal thrown in to enable each of us to engage with our own Whoseday Book in our own way. For The Whoseday Book is not just an anthology, a journal, a diary, a talisman and an artefact; it is a living thing, an opportunity for every individual, every family, to make of this hinging moment in history something unique and special that might last, perhaps, 1,000 years.
It is hoped that, every day of the year 2000, people, in their homes, with their families, might use their Whoseday Books to record their own and their children's versions of the day. The writings and images of the 366 original contributors are only part of the picture, which will not be completed until midnight on December 31st 2000, when the journal's last page has been filled in the last Irish household in the world. The Whoseday Book may be the last gasp of joined-up writing. It's an interactive book but not one you have to plug in. It is a book for those with a hankering to use, perhaps one last time before we surrender to the microchip, a fountain pen. Perhaps we should all have special pens for writing in our Whoseday Books.
But as well as being perhaps the last great book of the 20th century, The Whoseday Book will probably also become the first great book of the 21st. Who knows? Perhaps this will be the last book in which we will all join together in an ancient way and then again in a completely new way. For while it will undoubtedly have its place in the life of the cyber-Luddite, it will have an online life also. In this guise, The Whoseday Book, with the assistance of a leading Irish telecommunications company, plans to embark on what is believed to be the most ambitious ever Internet project, provisionally entitled the Yourday project. The idea will be to encourage those with Irish connections from all over the world to plug in to a dedicated Whoseday site and offer their own Whoseday contributions to be made accessible worldwide through the Internet.
Who should buy The Whoseday Book? Everybody. Not only that, but everybody should buy it for everybody else. In fact, there is no excuse for anyone seeking a Christmas 1999 present for anybody out of nappies to buy anything else. Everybody in the country should have at least one Whoseday Book, and it is scarcely possible to have too many.
The corporate sector, too, is being asked to suspend normal arrangements for client and employee gifts and give out Whoseday Books to those whose contribution, custom or friendship has called for acknowledgment. (Boxed books will be available for corporate orders, with corporate branding if requested.) Some hotels, such as the Merrion Hotel in Dublin, are already planning to make the Whoseday Book available to guests staying over the millennium New Year period. Schools and universities might consider ways in which, collectively speaking, they could use The Whoseday Book to create a special mark on history. It is hoped that some people's books, suitably completed, might later become available for auction, thus raising further funds for the Hospice Foundation.
The book measures 191mm by 241mm and is cloth-bound in black with foiled copper inlays on the cover and spine. It will retail at £30. The Whoseday Book will be available in bookshops throughout Ireland, with bulk orders for corporate clients being supplied directly by the Irish Hospice Foundation. The book will also be marketed in the US with the assistance of the America Ireland Fund. Printing takes place this month, and books will be available shortly thereafter. A more formal launch will take place this autumn.
The bottom line is that every penny you pay for this book will go directly towards the operation and development of hospice care. This has the added bonus that the money you pay for your Whoseday Book will be an investment in all our futures, and may one day help to ease the final days of a much loved relative or friend, even perhaps to turn our own last days on Earth into very special Whosedays.