May Day!

We live near Holywood, home to Rory McIlroy and to Ireland's only surviving maypole. From Wikipedia: "According to local folklore it dates from 1700, when a Dutch ship is said to have run aground on the shore nearby, and the crew erected the broken mast to show their appreciation of the assistance offered to them by the townsfolk. The maypole is still used for dancing at the annual May Day fair."

I went to the May Day fair in Holywood and it was closing down. I got there maybe an hour before it was due to end, but the weather wasn't great. It was mainly a street fair with bands playing. There had to be dozens of tents raising funds for every cause imaginable. Orphanage in India. Girls hockey. Fair trade. Amnesty International. Homeless ministries. Cancer research. Each sold knick knacks, books, baked goods, etc. I think I'd forgotten how central charities are to people's lives here.

As if to drive the point home, we went to Tenx9 (ten by nine) at a bar Monday night. Nine people have up to 10 minutes to tell a true story from their lives. One young man had worked in the occupied territories, counting Palestinian laborers queuing at 4 a.m. to cross into Israeli space to get paid work. It had never occured to me that Palestinians would provide the labor for the illegal Israeli settlements. Like there will be no blowback for that. Another woman spoke of her pending travels to south Sudan. Another man spoke of his work in favelas in Brazil. That's 3 out of 9 people. Ireland is famous for exporting its priests to serve the pious in other lands. Unsung are the masses of people who serve in so many ways and who, one hopes, will bring back their experiences to address the tensions in Ulster between the self appointed victims of the Troubles.
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