The exotic roots of our hard-working farmers
LIVING in hill farm country I'm well aware of the hard work local farmers and their wives put into their job. Much of it is filthy, dirty work, sheer drudgery, in fact, and in a winter such as this, it can be utter misery as they attempt to keep their animals from being buried in snow.
Prior to the winter months they work hard at preparing lower fields for those animals so that food can be taken to them and sick beasts tended to. When storms threaten animals have to be moved to those lower fields, a back-breaking, time-consuming job that can take a whole day to conclude.
I suspect most of them don't earn big incomes which makes hiring outside help too expensive. Many of those small farmers wouldn't know what it was like to have a day off, much less a holiday in the sun.
Before I married I had dated a farmer for a short time but I never saw him as a lifetime partner. None of my trendy girl friends lasted too long with farmers. The prospect of all that hard work with chickens, cleaning cow sheds and mucking out pigs had absolutely no appeal.
In our mini skirts, eyes loaded with mascara, Dusty Springfield beehive hairdos and pink shell nail varnish we were looking for the boys with sports cars, bank accounts and wearing the latest male fashion - black polo necks. Okay, we were after our own James Bond. We wanted nothing to do with pitch forks and tractors.
It wasn't always like that. In the distant past farmers were the ultimate catch for women; they wouldn't have dreamed of shacking up with anything less.
This lifestyle trait, apparently, took place in Ireland 6,000 years ago. Researchers at the University of Leicester have revealed that the majority of Irish men are descended from farmers who came to the country from exotic places around the Mediterranean bringing agriculture with them.
Some 85 per cent of Irish males today are from this stock. It has previously been believed the primary genetic legacy of Irish males was 'from hunter-gatherers who survived in Spain and Portugal during the last Ice Age'. We did have some indigenous hunter-gatherers but when the 'foreigners' arrived the women fell for them. Author of the Wellcome Trust funded study Patricia Balaresque concludes: "We are saying that most of that original hunter-gatherer male population was probably replaced by incoming agricultural populations. Maybe it was just sexier to be a farmer."
I bet it was. These farming types were able to produce food and women then would have known that that was the route to feeding her children and a more stable home life. There wouldn't be a need to continue wandering in search of food.
All this makes our history quite fascinating since most of us know far too little about our origins. Some even make it up for political advantage.
Take the republican community which has built its cause for a united Ireland around the notion that the Irish people are from sophisticated indigenous races of Celts and Gaels who were eventually turfed out of the country by the Brits. Republicans waged a 30-year war on us to advance their case. Yet what they believe is only a fraction of the truth. The Celtic and later Gaelic tribes who came to Ireland in the more recent past were from many different nations. So a very rough guide to the truth perhaps is that the 'real' Irish are not Irish at all but from the Mediterranean, in particular Turkey.
I'm not suggesting that today's farmers can't get wives, some of them marry the girl of their dreams. Yet I've heard that others have taken to internet dating to try to get themselves wives/partners. Others find modern farming too difficult, bureaucratic and socially inhibiting.
Farmers these days have no guarantee that their sons will follow them on to the land. Even farm workers want a 9 to 5 working day now.
So this harsh winter I salute all those farmers and their wives, and in particular those I know, who work themselves to the bone to keep food on our tables. I'm still glad I didn't marry one.
Country must provide proper care for the elderly
COULD science be on the cusp of finding a way to treat dementia successfully? A pioneering study carried out on mice and conducted at Stanford University in California suggests that human skin cells can be transformed into brain cells which will repair the damage done to the brain by Alzheimer's disease. This news has come in a week when the BBC has been highlighting the crisis of dementia, and when a leading lawyer says its time children took responsibility for the care of their elderly parents and grandparents as payback for the 'free' child care they were once given.
Baroness Deech, chairman of the Bar Standards Board points to a situation at one time when sons had to support their elderly relatives under the Poor Law (now repealed in England, Wales and Scotland). I know the situation in particular in Greece where the eldest son still assumes the responsibility for a parent or grandparent. In fact it's part of 'family honour'. Families there try not to have to put sick relatives into care. The granny annex to the family home is an essential.
Are too many young people now pushing relatives into care even at the loss of the family home to pay for it as they are too busy, or simply don't want, to be bothered with the effort it takes to provide that care? With a Labour Government demanding that all mothers of young children get back into the workforce before the babies are out of Pampers, there isn't much hope for the sick elderly. With couples also having to limit the number of children they have because life in this country is so expensive there will be no large families in future to spread the load of care of their loved ones. The Baroness might be preaching Labour doctrine but the reality out there is very different.
Sadly our MPs have been spending essential time lining their own pockets when they should have been paying proper attention to the real issues out there.
What does devolved policing and justice mean?
ISN'T it very easy for all of us armchair critics watching the policing and justice crisis being played out in full view of the television cameras to want to scream 'just get on with it'? That was my initial reaction when the debate began to stall. But I then sat down and asked myself what does this devolved policing and justice issue really mean? Who will be doing what and when? In the end I couldn't answer the questions I'd asked myself. I simply don't know enough about this issue to feel qualified to ring up my MP and tell him what to do. And I suspect most people are like that. We've a scant view of it all and that's not good enough as I suspect this issue could have ramifications for us all well into the future. The Shinners may complain about the delaying tactics of the Unionists but they are well experienced in delaying tactics when it has suited them in the past. The Unionists would have done well to learn the lessons from them. However, my colleague NR Greer wrote a well informed piece in this newspaper on Wednesday about the issue and it should be required reading for all those out there who think they understand but don't really. With dissident republicans still shooting people and petrol-bombing police stations and most of our major terrorist crimes still not resolved, now is not the time to be giving any control of law and order to those with a different agenda to the rest of us.
Domestic animals have rights, too
THE Swiss plan to hold a referendum on the issue of animal rights. They want to know if domestic creatures should have the right to be represented by lawyers in court. I can just imagine what would happen if such a law came this way. With three cats at home I can just imagine a scenario:
October (six-year-old moggy, overweight and lazy): "Your Honour, she put me on a diet this week and it's not fair, especially in this cold weather."
Charley (seven-year-old former stray): "Your Honour, October takes up all the space before the fire and I can't get my paws warmed. When I complain we're both banished to the kitchen."
Vicky (18-year-old head of the feline family): "Your Honour, I'm totally deaf and don't like it when everyone walks up behind me which is why I'm apt to smack the other two on the nose when they pass me. The head of the house says I'm a bully and scolds me. It's just not fair."
When is a nation not really a nation?
INSULT a Cornish man or woman if you want, it's unlikely you'll be hauled up to a court because, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission the Cornish people are 'not a real nation'. In other words, they don't exist as 'a people'. My late father-in-law would turn in his grave at the ruling. He spent most of his life in Cornwall and regarded himself not as an English man but as a true Cornish one. Newly married to his son and ignorant of all things Cornish, I thought I was being a good daughter-in-law by sending a Christmas card to his relatives in Padstow. At the bottom of the address I had written, Cornwall, England. Next time I met my father in law he put me right in the nicest possible way, of course. I never made that mistake again. The EHRC is a Government quango which clearly needs to be brought down a peg. People are a nation if they believe they are and that should be the end of it.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
