“The inn is full,” said Cllr Noel Thomas, after the arsonists’ handiwork on a refugee shelter in Rosscahill while carefully not defending it. The inn is full, he said, in sight of the smouldering wreckage of what indisputably had been a habitable vacant inn just a few hours before. The irony was scorching. The councillor was keeping it seasonal, referencing the nativity story while neatly capsizing its central message. Maybe some thought it was a clever play on an old story.
Perhaps the unintended consequence of his 15 minutes of fame will be to force a rethink of why we bother with Christmas at all.
Does whoever disabled the CCTV and flooded the Ross Lake Hotel before setting fire to it have a normal home life with all the Christmas gifts wrapped for their own excited little broods? Did they shed a tear at the children’s tender depiction of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the nativity play? Are they planning to have the neighbours in for a few drinks to celebrate the feast? Might they attend midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and sing along to Silent Night?
Of course they might burn down a refugee shelter and also be normal family men or women. They don’t have to buy into the literal nativity story of course. No one has to believe the tale of the exhausted expectant parents who were turned away from the inn (it was full, apparently) and found shelter in a stable where the mother laid her newborn in a manger surrounded by farm animals and where the first visitors were terrified shepherds, followed by three wise men travelling from Arabia, Persia and India with precious gifts.
Far from believing it, many will be honing their annual, Wikipedia recitation of how Christmas was hijacked from a hodgepodge of the winter solstice, the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, the uptick in supernatural activities and whatever you’re having yourself. Despite the hot rumour of a fascist regime, they won’t be martyred for expressing views at odds with the neighbours’.
But neither is it obligatory to scorn a message that many find uplifting and restorative. Not every thought has to be blurted out at the dinner table. But if words such as love, peace and goodwill have collapsed into a sneery old cliche for many, whose fault is that? Authorities and institutions may have shattered public trust but a failure to hope and wish and act for love, peace and goodwill is on us.
How can that image of a burning hotel, a piece of local heritage in a beautiful December landscape, ever be explained or justified – still less to a child?
Many of those who have long abandoned Catholicism or Christianity continue to nod to many traditional elements of the feast. We offer gifts, hospitality and above all, precious time to people who at other times might trigger us to poke our eyes out. We welcome the spirit of a Santa who gives generously but anonymously. We give particular attention to those in need. We bring light into others’ lives. These are all seasonal basics for believers, fumbling believers, regretful doubters and non-believers.
In 2018 when Donald Trump was fielding calls from a hotline for children wondering how Santa’s supersonic delivery schedule was working out, he asked a seven-year-old: “Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at 7, it’s marginal, right?” “Yes, sir,” said the little girl, who said that she’d left cookies out – and had chatted with the president for oh, maybe 10 seconds before being told that her parents had been lying liars for seven years. What impels an old man with every worldly possession to deliberately disenchant a child?
What impels anyone with purpose and joy in their lives to deliberately destroy the aspirations of others?
Refugee shelters have been torched in all seasons but there is something particularly grievous about doing it now.
Sadness and loneliness are the inevitable byproducts of Christmas, days built securely – if you are lucky – around family, tradition, squally children, healthy parents, joyful homecomings, laden tables. For the not-so-lucky the annual assembly may be a battle in a hothouse of old resentments, drink problems, money worries, illness, differing child-rearing philosophies, morose teenagers, sadness or grief.
Many of us have lost a dear one this year. Children have lost a parent; someone is waiting for biopsy results; someone is coping with a new diagnosis; someone is pushing through punishing treatment with supernatural grace; someone has been suddenly laid off from a prized job; someone who arrived here seeking hope and humanity is coiled with fear as he navigates the city in a job that exposes him to merciless abuse.
This week as a dear suffering friend and I parted on a Dublin street, I looked around and recalled Auden’s words on how well the Old Masters understood suffering – “how it takes place while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along”.
Every one of us will face that reckoning sometime by some random turn of the dice making these Christmas days of tolerance and reconciliation, of generosity and kindness with a dusting of magic, fleeting and precious.
Perhaps that’s why after disbelief and anger, the overriding feeling this week is of sadness. How can that image of a burning hotel, a piece of local heritage in a beautiful December landscape, ever be explained or justified – still less to a child? The inn is full?