Easter In Ireland This Year

Plant and Animal Life 

Easter Sunday in County Kilkenny is a beautiful still day, with daffodils out all over the place and the twinkle of dew to be seen on every blade of grass. There is just the green and brown of Autumn. Winter thankfully doesn’t kill everything in Ireland but Spring and it’s multitude of colours hasn’t come yet. I worry for the farmers who need to sow crops but know that the soil is not warm enough and the temperatures could drop so sharply, on occasion, over the next few months that seedling won’t make it or blossom will not have time to form fruit. I don’t like to think about the farmers behind the lambs I see everywhere. I know they work hard but those lambs are so spindly and delicate and brand new, their mothers so proud and protective. It can’t be right that their only value is as a pound of flesh.

Painting - Lambs at the Secret Valley Wildlife Park

Lambs in Real Life Growing Up in Kilkenny

Lambs being carted off

 

Lamb of God: Jesus' Life

I have thought about life cycles a lot this week. My father is inspired by Jesus’ life and has written three books about Easter specifically. He is sure that Jesus' message was about how to live and what to do with our time here. Rather than getting bogged down in religion and it’s ceremonious and sometimes sanctimonious actions and observations, let's consider the fact that Jesus washed the feet of his friends at the last supper. I think we are to take from that that we are to help, serve and love one another.

Everyone Else's Lives

I wrote a book once from the perspective of various animals I knew well. Two chapters were from two of my childhood friends, Charlie and Tink, bullocks that lived in a field next to my house. However, it was Jonah, my parents’ dog, that pointed out the difficulties in my Dad’s argument. He felt that such a focus on one death did not do justice to the reams of unacknowledged deaths that have taken place before and since Jesus.

Jonah and Co.

A very beloved man was killed this week in Kilkenny out of the blue. So noone I know is thinking about Jesus. If anyone is going to be resurrected, can it please be Peter. For Aine, Leanne, his brother and parents, Geraldine and the hundreds of devastated friends and relations left behind. A wonderful soul, taken too early.