My favourite Irishman

One attraction that graced many an Irish blog last year was an invitation to vote for your favourite Irishman of all time, with most of the praises going to people like Wolfe Tone, Eamon de Valera, Padraig Pearse; even Mary Peters and George Best.

 

Each of us comes this way only once and there's surely not one of us who hasn't spared a thought for what history will make of him or her. It's interesting that, for many people, their image in the great record of world history is made or broken by things they said or did, often during a small part of their lives - even an instant. We don't know, for instance, whether King William III had a good sense of humour, all we know is one day he killed a lot of Catholics near Drogheda. Similarly, Bobby Sands is known for the fact that he starved himself to an early death on a principle he held dear, not for what a wit he may have been in the pub. More pointedly, Oscar Wilde is remembered for being a poof, and Jean McConville for being murdered by the IRA, yet there must have been so much more about these people that was interesting and of value to us.

 

Every person has a public image, and a wise man does well to guard it. But there's always so much more behind the image, so much we don't see. The reason I mention this is that I believe everyone has their moments of being a hero, usually in their private lives, and often inwardly in ways others don't notice. The woman who overcomes alcoholism or cancer, the man who survives the death of a child, the young man whose parents live in different homes. It all requires strength and calls forth great character.

 

That's why my favourite Irishman doesn't have a name - because there are too many and because even the most unlikeable characters can have their moments of Bigness. In everyday terms, the Protestant who walks up an unfamiliar drive to pay his last respects to a Catholic neighbour and crosses himself at the funeral, and the Catholic schoolteacher who runs a youth club for Protestant kids (like me, once) are living out the kind of respect and tolerance that Ulster aches for and which all of us - in our hearts - want to see.

 

Although Georgie and deV were big Irishmen, the Big ones are often everyday folk. And the best thing is, everyone can be a hero.