We all share the landscape. Some parts of it are more private than others, your back garden is away from the public gaze and you are free to treat it in whatever fashion you fancy. Inevitably you want it to be pleasing; pleasant to look at and engaging to be in. In engaging with public space there is a realisation that in catering to everyone it will not always be to our taste but nonetheless we treat it with respect and expect the same from others. It is there for communal fulfilment and enjoyment and it is in everyone’s interest to keep it right in order to provide the spiritual lift we all need and crave in this relentless world of ours. Nowadays everyone is sufficiently sophisticated, progressive and enlightened to regard the landscape in the same way that you do, right? Right?
Regrettably wrong. The photo below was taken in Monasterevin last Friday morning. It attests to the presence of some very strange people in our midst, people walking the same streets as you and I, breathing the same air. You bump into these people at the petrol station, in the frozen food aisle of the local supermarket. They look normal, and for the most part they act normally but they harbour a deep, dirty, dark secret. They will gladly defile the landscape that we all share because either they’re mentally ill equipped to realise the immorality of it or they do and just don’t care.
Try to put yourself in the mindset of someone who thinks this is OK. I can’t, I’m sure you can’t either. It is customary nowadays to seek to concoct a justification and ascribe it to every conceivable form of delinquency so, in that spirit, to what can we attribute such degeneracy? Is it lack of education, poor parenting, socio- economic factors? It could be a tinge of any of those things but mostly I think it boils down to plain old ignorance. To not give a thought as to the impact of this behaviour on residents and visitors, the example it sets for impressionable young people, the investment of scarce local authority resources that it necessitates in its rectification. Resources, mind you, that could be better employed in any number of other areas.
Have we reached a point where the level of civic pride amongst a certain cohort of our population is at such a low ebb that they cannot be relied upon not to deface public space with their refuse? How did we get here? Are we on the verge of an appalling vista where people are to be congratulated for not dumping their rubbish in public?
It’s hard but it’s worth trying to remember that for every person throwing black bags out of the boot of their car there is a Tidy Town’s volunteer, there is a proud and committed local activist. There are the fundraisers and all manner of good folk giving of their time to enhance the organs of our community; the clubs, the societies, the instruments that bring people together and give your locality its beating heart. It’s necessary to console ourselves by thinking that for every fly tipper there are a hundred decent civic minded volunteers who toil inconspicuously in the background to foster and propagate the spirit of the communities we all call home.
So the next time you see a pile of black bags ripped apart by stray dogs at the bottle bank or in the gateway of a factory think of a Mary who bakes cakes for the Camogie Club Sale of Work or organises a clothing collection for Syrian refugees, of a Séamus who stands in the Supermarket doorway all day collecting for the Boxing Club. Think of all the good people out there and don’t let the other ones grind you down.
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