It's been a week we'll never forget. A week that felt like a year and yet wasn't even a week coz the week only really started Wednesday and today is Sunday but us Irish like to exaggerate so we'll say it's a week that felt like a year.
Us Irish like to do a lot of things which The Beast and Storm Emma arriving have proved.
Being snowed in and not able to go to work has brought out a certain mischievous side to us that we love to show. To be honest the snow and storm gave us a chance to be really Irish. I spent most of the week checking out social media for weather updates and peoples updates. I've watched snow challenges, crazy snowmen built, igloos with children begging to be allowed to live in, I've watched nurses, doctors, paramedics, carers, and the general public attempt to get to work. Not only attempt to get to work but get there and safe lives, and save the sanity of so many. Jesus I can't even begin to comprehend the hardship they went through just to get to work. For us, they got up and went to work for us. For no other reason than to make our lives easier. Thank you seems so small now. Some stories were funny, some were tragic and some of them made me wish I had an amazing snow storm story to share but during every minute I knew I was part of something special. Something that might never happen again.
This freak weather week will go down in History and I've been a part of it, we'll read about it and the naughty Irish part of me laughs when I imagine that someday we'll find a way to pin it on the English. Gotta laugh at that and I'm pretty sure our neighbours across the water will sigh and whisper.. yep we're gonna get the blame for this somehow.
We learned the names of so many heroes and so many victims of this freak weather. The homeless, the helpless and the ones we'll never forget.
Remember this week.... Brennans Bread will surely never let us forget it. Bless them and their hard workers, they brought us bread on a level of delivery unprecedented in this country. And there was jokes and memes and photos and at one point the bread nearly came to life to tell us its story. And being Irish we fucking loved being snowed in. Loved telling our tales about who had the most snow. Even though most places had feet of snow we at times wanted it to be miles of snow. We're Irish lads so I'm pretty sure we did have miles of it.
We've sworn blind on bibles that when the summer finally comes we won't bitch about the farmers coz they're hogging the road and spraying slurry while we try to tan, and they won't drop sods of turf off their trailers while we try to overtake them on a boreen at a bend coz the fuckers are holding us up and we've sworn this because we've had a week that felt like a year of smiling every time we've seen a tractor. They've pulled us out of ditches, dragged us out of the middle of nowhere and the comfort we've gotten from them is priceless. So at the very least we won't bitch as much when we drive round a corner and there they are holding us up.....
But the one thing we won't exaggerate is the scumbags who ruined our fun and our pain. The low life uneducated assholes who fucked it all up for us. The pricks who stole a jcb and destroyed a lidl and left 50 workers out of jobs. Workers who have to sit at their kitchen tables tomorrow and look at their kids wondering how the bills will be paid. The useless scum who think it's ok to thieve and rob shops and jewellers and then return to their homes laughing and thinking they are hard boys. You're not so fuck you all. Fuck you for ruining our memories and our hard times and yes our fun. Fuck you from me coz I know what it's like to be hungry and none of you did this from hunger. I lived in a house, youngest of 8 and at times even though we were hungry we never starved. One of us would always have a slice of bread saved and under the many blankets and coats that covered us in the freezing winter that attempted to keep us warm that slice of bread was shared as equally as we thought it could be. Fuck you from my father that worked in a block factory to get us the slice of bread. Fuck you from my mother who made bread from a recipe that never came from a cookbook. Fuck you from the kitchen 8 children sat and watched that bread come to life, tongues hanging down the side of our mouths like half starved waifs.
We were never hungry, coz we had love and we were Irish and we're proud of that. Proud of our history and Flynns Bakery and the Country Shop and all the other little shops with the books with our name on it and the bill that was paid on friday and a tab that was reopened again on Saturday. Fuck you for thinking it's ok to fuck with us and savage us for your own ignorant gain. I don't care who you are, what your nationality is, whether you call yourself Irish or not, where you were born or where you've travelled from to get here, just remember where you sleep tonight. You sleep on Irish soil, you lie under the sky of an amazing country but fuck you for not realising it. Fuck you for that ignorance and know this..... We won't tolerate this. We won't ever be ashamed to be Irish and we won't allow you to bring us down
We are Irish and we won't ever forget the snow and storm of 2018 so maybe you shits should take a trip down the memory lane of our amazing country....
Valerie Masters
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