As Murt Mac Garraidhe wrote in his book, Strangers at Home, the early Irish considered the Christian idea of man having dominion over the beasts of the earth, the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the air, an arrogant lunacy. So too was the Christian assertion that animals had no souls. Any notion of dominion over a soulless Earth was even more ludicrous. For Éire, the land we know today as Ireland, has both soul and sovereignty.
Murt’s words echo those of Chief Sealth in his famous letter to President Pierce as his people were being forced off their ancestral land. How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. For this land is sacred to us. Owning the land was unthinkable. However for both Chief Sealth’s people and the Irish, this sacred world view would prove fatal.

When the English arrived in Ireland they were surprised and ultimately pleased to find a culture of scattered tribes living in a reciprocal and balanced relationship with a wild, untamed land. Murt sums it well. The new invaders found Éire an inhospitable wilderness and tended to regard the Gaeil as primitive savages who failed to ‘progress’ as others had and who knew nothing of agriculture. To them, the Gaeil were throwbacks to a past that had long since disappeared in much of northern Europe: they were like some wandering nomadic tribe that had escaped from the books of the Old Testament, and were obviously not meant to be in possession of such a fine land. 

Basically, if the Irish didn’t consider themselves owners of the land they didn’t deserve to own it. If they weren’t exploiting the landscape and its resources they didn’t deserve the landscape and its resources. The English were happy to take the land off their hands. And they did, by slaughter, starvation and deportation. As Murt wrote, their commercially oriented society, and the ways in which they exploited the landscape and its resources to support themselves, were to have a profound effect on the ecology of Éire, the legacy of which we are living today. I would argue not only the ecology but also the spirit and soul of Éire and her people.

Lynne’s been to Ireland with me a few times now. This is one of her favorite stories. She and Linda had tucked into The Creamery Restaurant in Bunratty for dinner and the creme brulee caught her eye. Lynne’s all about her deserts. Apparently it was delicious and in talking with their server Lynne asked if the cream was local. “Oh no,” came the quick reply, “it’s from Limerick.” Limerick is eight miles from Bunratty.

While this story reflects prevailing public sentiment on local and organic food, it does not reflect the whole story.

When I first travelled to Ireland local and organic food issues were much in the media. Along with concerns about GMOs. Irish farmers contemplating the use of GMO feed and pesticides were roundly criticized. Although the Irish have never been huge fans of the English, their thinking seemed totally aligned with Prince Charles’ statement that GMOs are the “biggest environmental disaster of all time.” I was delighted to learn that in 2009 Ireland joined countries throughout Europe and around the globe in banning the cultivation of GM crops and adopting GM-free food labeling. The government statement announcing the ban noted that “the WTO’s economic globalisation agenda has forced most Irish farmers to enter an unwinnable race to the bottom for low quality GM-fed meat and dairy produce.”

It was a great victory, although short-lived. The Irish were aware that when Germany adopted a no-GMO policy they were sued by Monsanto. And so they braced themselves. Sure enough. In a threat made to nations who rejected GMO crops and biotechnology overall, United States ambassador to France and business partner to George W. Bush, Craig Stapleton, made it clear that all nations opposing GMOs will be hit with calibrated ‘target retaliation’ and ‘military-style trade wars’.

In 2011 the Irish government “confirmed that Ireland has altered its voting position and will support a number of proposals from the EU Commission aimed at authorizing the placing on the market of food, food ingredients and feed containing, consisting of, or produced from genetically modified maize and cotton.” It didn’t stop with maize and cotton. In 2012 the potato fell.

Yet in the midst of current economic conditions the Irish people seem to remain both concerned and committed to local, organic, and unadulterated food sources. It’s an ethic and movement aligned with how many Irish see themselves in relationship with their land…and their food. It may not live in the politics but it does live in the people. And in the David and Goliath drama, Ireland is well familiar with the role of David.

It’s about how we choose to release things. Or not. My brother, sister and I recently rented a storage unit for some items from our dad’s house. The last one of any size available in the area, it was much larger than we needed. We considered offering ballroom dance lessons to offset the monthly rental cost.

There are currently 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space in the US. Seven square feet for every man, woman and child making it physically possible for every American – all at the same time – to stand under a canopy of self-storage roofing equivalent to three times Manhattan Island. We are a nation attached to our stuff.

To call this a religious attachment is not far off the mark. In 1955 economist and presidential advisor Victor LeBow came up with a solution to bolster our post-war economy which has been adopted with increasing enthusiasm over the years. However the booming storage industry would indicate that while we excel at consuming we are not so good at discarding. At least not completely. Out of sight, out of mind, but not out of our lives. Continue reading →

Coming around a blind curve at 100 KPH, the legal limit on many of Ireland’s narrow winding roads, and finding yourself face to face with a tour bus significantly wider than the oncoming lane can be a bit daunting. At this point the center lane, if there is one, holds no meaning. There are no shoulders and the vegetation now brushing the side of your car most probably conceals a substantial stone wall. Add to that driving from the right side of the car on the left side of the road. Ask anyone who’s been there, motoring in Ireland is an adventure. Why don’t they widen the roads?, is a frequent question from fellow travelers shaken by a recent encounter.

In fact the Celtic Tiger brought with it a significant surge of road construction and now dual carriage ways (double lane highways) bypass many villages. While I appreciate the advantages of fast travel from point A to point B, I go to Ireland to savor time, not save it. And what is lost for me is a slow crawl through narrow village streets, delivery trucks double parked, garbage trucks stopping every few feet to empty trash containers, and pedestrians crossing wherever convenient.

But in much of Ireland the roads remain as they have for centuries. Yes, they are frequently resurfaced, but they are rarely if ever widened or straightened. The roads are shaped by the land, the farms and fields which are small enough without carving out larger lanes. Those stone boundary walls are not easily moved, physically, socially or emotionally. And the Irish don’t seem to find the narrow winding roads much of an impediment. After all the speed limit is 100KPH.

That anyone would journey through life as both healer and butcher seems wildly absurd. Beyond incongruous and beyond my ability to reconcile until I realized my reaction to Mr. O’Donoghue (Healer. Butcher. post 2.21.13) is a cultural one, based absolutely in the dynamics of my consumer culture.

People assume that as a vegetarian I have issues with eating animals. Not true. If I had issues around killing for food I would starve. Everything I consume, animal or plant, sacrifices its life force energy. What I have issues with is factory farming and the horrific conditions in which animals in this country are raised and slaughtered. The Meatrix provides a compelling overview of these practices. When animals, and plants for that matter, become mere commodities they lose their place in the web of life, no longer considered cohabitants with us on this planet. Any sense of honoring or sacred connection and relationship is gone.  http://www.themeatrix.com/

People in O’Donoghue’s village are clearly able to seek him out for both healing and a good cut of beef without apparent contradiction or incongruity. Perhaps because factory farming hasn’t taken over completely in Ireland. Perhaps because they haven’t completely lost a knowing that the food we eat and healing are all part of the web. Perhaps they haven’t lost the connection.