Ireland - part one

In the 1970s, I was a cocky young journalist based in London. The picture above - film in those days - was taken from a television report. When anyone sensible was running from explosions, I was running towards them. And in Ireland there were lots of explosions. 

Many of my memories of Ireland, especially the North, are grim ... ‘The Troubles’ and those explosions. I heard them, the unmistakable crump, but, mercifully, never experienced one, only the aftermath.

I didn't take a lot of personal pictures at the time, but a few survive in a scrapbook.

Sometimes I would travel in army helicopters flying low to avoid IRA rocket fire. 

I had occasional meals and uneasy sleep in British bases in what the soldiers called ‘bandit country’. The netting in both pictures was there - optimistically - to lessen damage from mortar attacks. 

I remember, too, sitting in a brave politician’s car as we drove through country lanes known for terrorist attacks and knowing that he was a prominent target.

A few years later, I covered Lord Mountbatten’s assassination in Sligo and funeral, the chilling ‘Dead March’ reverberating through central London as his coffin on a gun carriage neared Westminster Abbey.

Then, one final, horrific story in Ireland, the 1985 Air India bombing.

329 dead - 268 of them Canadian - when the plane went down off the Irish coast. I spent days covering the aftermath and never went back.

Now, after more than thirty years, I have glimpsed the Irish shoreline. My first sight is not far from where boats set out to recover what was left of the Air India passengers and crew.

I’ve come back, not to exorcize ghosts, that would exaggerate the impact of Ireland on my psyche. But, even in the worst of times, Ireland was beautiful and I want to see it again. To employ that over-quoted phrase of poet W. B. Yeats, Ireland has 'a terrible beauty’. 

Once a largely ignorant young man, I return with the experience of many decades. Reporting of the sort I did in Ireland was reactive. A bomb here, a murder there, a news item quickly filed. But my knowledge of Ireland's past was relatively limited. What had led to all this? My grasp of Irish history - centuries and centuries of conflict and oppression - was superficial. Now is the time to learn.

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A Toronto weekend of ice pellets, freezing rain, snow and many flight cancellations meant I departed nearly two hours late, but, at least, I departed.

I have arrived in Dublin on a glorious day. Oh, there are daffodils …

… and pansies …

… and early forsythia brightening quaint cottages.

Even dandelions cheer me up after a miserable winter back home. My trip is off to a good start.