Sir, After my Irish husband died people used to ask me if I would now go home. "I suppose you will go back to America", they would say. I could never quite explain why I felt so completely at home in Ireland, but today's Irish Times has given me an example of, why I am still here.
Nuala O'Faolain writes simply, honestly and bravely about the deep pain of loneliness. She tells of realising that she was on her own" and might be that way for the rest of her life. Immediately, strangers who had never met here, wrote opening their hearts and their homes offering companionship, compassion, understanding and perhaps most typically Irish of all, humour. Who but an Irish person could express a profound truth so simply "Join us and the ducks and the dogs and the hens. Sure, aren't we all strays?"
We all give out, legitimately, about the politicians, the tribunal the traffic, et al., but they fade into insignificance in the face of the authentic human voice acknowledging shared pain and concern.
In her book, Nuala describes being moved to tears by a quartet in Fidelio. She asks her companion "Why is ensemble singing so beautiful? What makes it move us so much?" He replies "People would be like that all the time, if they could?" They can and, in Ireland at least, a lot of the time they are. Yours, etc., Dalkey, Co Dublin.