The Reason I’m Here is to Tell You Some Stories. #42 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

Telling stories allows us to create a legacy.

Total Words

1,306

Reading Time in Minutes

5

Key Takeaways:

  1. The use of stories and storytelling helps us learn and remember the past it’s the way our human ancestors handed down stories for this reason.
  2. The personalised story of each storyteller is part of their unique DNA profile and,  as such, cannot be owned by any other person or corporation.
  3. Understanding our legacy in our lifetime helps families and communities understand where they come from and helps anchor humans in society to be a useful part of a knowledge bank worthy of passing on. 
  4. When we stop ignoring critical problems that affect our society and vote as a collective community, the World will be 
    a better place.

About Geraldine O'Brien:

Interior Architect and grandmother still seeking new ways to use my experience.

Contacting Geraldine O'Brien:

You can contact Geraldine by email

By Geraldine O’Brien

Anthropology and Archeology are ways we study the earth’s inhabitants and their lives,  past and present.  We have lost the voices of past generations. Individual word-of-mouth, image stories etc.
These stories are around for a couple of generations and then they sadly disappear.  
We are losing know-how and other irretrievable human knowledge that has been discovered and lost over time. 
Our lives and how we live them are unique to each person. 
These stories make up the social history of our time. They reflect our identity, our relationships, our family history legacies and our social data.
We need a better way to capture them for the future.
Stories have to be told, or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are and why we are here  Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees.
The work experience that stood out for me in my design life was working for Magdalene Women.
The interior job was to rehome an ageing community of Catholic Nuns and a community of Magdalene Women (girls) who were still in the care of the nuns long after the Industrial Laundry closed.
The old convent, school and laundry buildings were being sold to Dublin City Council for redevelopment as the community had no further use for them. 
A new home was to be built for both nuns and women.
I felt privileged to see first-hand how both communities lived and experienced how the new building changed their lives for the better.  
Each girl had a profound story to tell me, and my empathy for the girls made me fight for them.  The nuns had taken vows of poverty and dedicated their lives of prayer when they joined the convent. Devoting their lives to God.
Some of the girls didn’t seem to understand questions I asked of them?  Having obtained permission to talk to both nuns and girls.  
They were equally my clients and I needed to understand each client’s needs.
“You know you are moving to your new home with your “own” room? 
Was as far as I got before they replied
 “The reason I’m here”. 
Followed by how and why are they still found themselves confined to a Magdalene Laundry. 
Not fully understanding at the time,  that they had been traumatised by their laundry experience and had been ostracised from their family and communities.  I felt unable to lift their spirits. 
I reflecting long after,  why they answered in that precise way. 
What they needed most was a clarification to know that they did exist in this  World. 
That the stories they each told me were real.  
Perhaps they were afraid they might forget, if they didn’t tell their story to anyone who would listen to them. 
Many years later, a thought struck me, what the traumatised girls wanted most was a Living Legacy of each of their stories. 
These stories resonated with me perhaps because of my interest in Storytelling. 
I found each of their stories believable and memorable.
What they asked me for on that day was a way to be heard and not forgotten.
Those brave Magdalene women left their life imprint on me that day.  
Those stories stayed with me for a long time, and the feeling I had missed solving the something yet to understood. Realising they had PTSD,  remained untreated in their lifetime.
The Magadelane Women were the genesis for building a prototype and business plan for a Digital Story Archive.
My idea was to give people a simple, fun way to capture and store their stories safely for the future.
Simple but not in practice. My prolonged search for funding for a non-profit business model such as this was not to be found at the time. 
Holding out hope, that one day I can add my findings to such an archive. 
The more I look at this problem, the more it is clear to me that. 
Humans need a safe way to leave a Living Legacy to understand and live a fulfilled life.
Doing so has health and educational benefits for society.
I continue to find research to back up my theory.
I attended an open day at The National Library of Ireland for Europeana. The Digital European Archive supported by the European Union.
To have a better understanding of what prompted people to attend,  events such as this.
Europeana wanted to digitise and collect some personal stories from WW11 for the Archive. 
Six hundred people attended that day,  the largest attendance in all the British Isles. 
One lady told me a story about her brother,  who had joined the British Army. 
How when he returned home,  He found his wife had remarried. 
She had been informed, he had died on the battlefield. She had remarried and had children with her new partner.
Finding himself now homeless, with no chance of getting work in a post-war Ireland. 
Being stigmatised by his community for fighting for Britain. 
He did marry again,  his second wife was a school teacher,  and she supported and cared for him. 
He fought depression and PTSD for the rest of his life.
As She was now the only member left of that family.  Her brothers ration book was her only rememberance of his life. 
Meeting a Father and Son who came to have their Father and Grandfather remembered. 
He had been decorated,  and several books recounted his courageous feats of saving his regiment, He sadly died on the battlefield. The family had his uniform, helmet and other memorabilia,  
As His was a more provable story,  Europeana digitised their story that day.  
The many others attendees with stories that day were not so fortunate.
Dr Jonny Walker Having trained as a radiologist in Australia and worked as a Flying Doctor in the  Outback with the Aboriginal communities.  
He since moved to Ireland. and now practices in Dublin.  
He talks about his work experience with that communty and how impactful they were on his life. He mentioned in passing at a talk that I attended. 
 “The word to ostracise or to be ostracise comes from Aboriginal culture” He said.
When the elders vote to eject a person for a misdeed in their community. 
“That person was shown The Bone”. The meaning was clear that they no longer belonged to the community.  Without a community to belong to,  was a certain death sentence in the Outback.
My last story is about a homeless agency that published a coffee table book to publicise their agency and service. 
One of the stories in the book was about one of their residents.  
Who, when shown his picture next to his story,  ran away shouting, “I am real, and I am alive”.  Similarities between the Magadelane Woman and the homeless man.
Feeling they had both been ostracised from families and community and they didn’t believe they existed.

24 Carat Legacy #41 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

A little introspection goes a long way had we only the eyes to see it. I enjoyed (re)writing this piece the first seven times after that it became a matter of discipline, whether I made the finishing line or just took a wrong turn I’ll leave you to judge.

Total Words

449

Reading Time in Minutes

2

Key Takeaways:

  1. Starting from the end
  2. What do you see when you look back?
  3. Is this what you really want ?
  4. What am I so afraid of ?

About Tom'ORahilly:

Tom is self employed and revels working in diverse and creative teams. “It will eventually become obvious” and ” I’ll know it when I see it.” and then you have to keep on going. “The edge only becomes apparent once you go over it”

Contacting Tom O'Rahilly:

You can contact Tom by email or see his on with NLM

By Tom O’Rahilly

“There is none so poor that leave nothing behind “

Blaise Pascal

I like this and like it even more because it does not require more refinement but deserves more consideration.

If we are bound to leave something, then what will it be ?

In an age of superabundance, we are so resource rich that the emperors of Rome could only dream of the luxuries on offer.

Their decadence and glorified injustices were far removed from the reality of the masses, just as our lives are far removed from the labourers in far off fields and sweatshops. They may have kept their slaves behind bars we do it behind barcodes and brands.

As consumers, we spend much of our time online, willingly beguiled by images on our screens, like Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot we see the world not as it is but as a reflection of reality, The image of a fire burns coldly without the true warmth of another.

Basking in dreams of attainable desires we become hungry ghosts of our true selves. Like the Algonquin possessed by the Wendigo our hunger can never be sated and one by one its victims become possessed by that same hunger.

Emperors used vomitoria to eat beyond hunger, just as we are stimulated to consume beyond necessity. They promised bread and circuses to distract the mases now, after each show, when the lights go up, we push on past the rubbish afraid to stop and confront the mess and little by little it grows, pressing on that vital nerve of compassion.

Richly adorned with things we sit in ever more solitary splendour further and further removed from what really matters.

Our legacy to ourselves, when we gasp our final breath, did I love well ?

Stories #40 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

Stories are an important way to connect when we’re alive and are equally important as a means of being remembered when we’re dead.

Total Words

470

Reading Time in Minutes

2

Key Takeaways:

  1. The best part of funerals are the Eulogies
  2. The stories that are told about us when we die are the ones that keep our memories alive.
  3. Good stories are memorable and repeatable.

About Donal O'Dea:

Ex-Advertising Creative Director. Co-author of the ‘Feckin’Series’ of books, ‘Stuff Irish People Love’ and various different humorous books on Irish culture. I also write and direct short films.

I play a little bit of Basketball and spend my spare time hauling my ass over the Wicklow hills on a bike.

Contacting Donal O'Dea:

You can contact Donal by email or see his work on O’Dea.ie and Remarkable Films

By Donal O’Dea

I don’t like going to Mass.

Week in and week out, it’s pretty much the same thing and, well, for someone with low attention span, it gets tedious.

But funerals, while sad, are different because you’re celebrating the life of a person.

Every one of them are different.

I was at my mother’s last month. She’d reached the grand old age of 92 and her time had come.

For the congregation who had sat through the mass, now was the time for them to get rewarded with some good stories about the deceased.

My brother had written a well crafted eulogy. Easy for me to say, but I think the task wouldn’t have been hard because she had led an interesting life.

And stories he told. Sometimes they were tear jerkingly sad and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Her various achievements wern’t important unless they were wrapped up in a good yarn.

At the end he got a big round of applause.

He did her proud.

My father passed away over 20 years ago. I didn’t get on well with him. He was an alcoholic. He didn’t spend much time with the family but was always getting involved in some mad project that had noting to do with us.

My brother, once again, delivered the eulogy. Cleverly he cast him as a lovable rogue. He told some great stories about his misdemeanours and how although he had died young, he lived life to the full.

People like to be remember favourably. But if they can’t be remembered favourably, they at very least want to be remembered.

I think stories are an important part of how we connect with people when we’re alive. Good stories are entertaining, memorable and repeatable.

Likewise the good stories that are told about us when we die are the ones that keep our memories alive.

The more time we spend creating stories now, the more people will remember us when we’re dead.

Societies Legacy Code #39 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

A joint, chinese whispered blog between Dermot Casey, Joan Mulvihill and Alan Costello. It turned out to have some past, present and future vibes

Total Words

707

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. Consider legacy code
  2. Consider your current state
  3. Spot future building blocks earlier

About Dermot, Alan & Joan:

Its Dermot, Joan and Alan.
You know us!

Contacting Joan, Alan & Demrot

See Joan, Dermot & Alan’s submissions.

By Alan, Joan, Dermot

Tradition is peer pressure from dead people as someone once quipped. In practice its one element in the web of social Legacy Codes we’re all bound in. ‘Legacy code’ is an idea from software development. Something needs to be done so we build some software to do it. It works. It creates lots of value, and the needs don’t change frequently so it gets locked in place. Banking systems build in the COBOL language in the 1960s persist today. I’ve a photo of a headstone for COBOL in the Boston Computer Museum (BCM) from 1992. The BCM closed in 1999 while COBOL rolls on. There’s still 800 billion lines of COBOL running globally supporting $3trillion and 95% of ATM transactions in 2024. Changing things is hard. It takes an awful lot of work. Despite newer better and simpler ways to do things social legacies persist for a very long time.

Despite only 5% of 25-35 year olds being practising Catholics 90% of their kids have to go to Catholic primary schools. Keynes recognising the persistence and perniciousness of another form of legacy social code commented “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

And there it is. The burden of legacy. How do I live up to what has gone before me? What if I’m not as good and weaken the chain? What if it all falls apart on my watch? There is inherent pressure with legacy to maintain the standard and build upon it. There is better code than cobol yet cobol persists, why? Because cobol works. It provided a solid foundation upon which to build. That is legacy. The alternative is to unravel and dismantle all that is old and build from new each time. That is wasteful, disrespectful and dangerous. Just as the rings in the tree record the years, so too with old code, old buildings, old streets. To erase the legacy code, religion, economics, buildings, streets is to delete the records, delete the learning. Legacy is the foundation for growth, each generation setting out with a benchmark from which they can do more, go farther and faster than the one before. And yet, for the first time this new generation will not be as well off as their parents. They will not be able to buy their own homes. But does this mean that they will have failed to build upon the legacy or is it us who have failed them? The burden of legacy is not just in living up to what we receive but in making sacrifice for what we will leave.

The meme that highlights – Sometimes, the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others’, could pertain here. And its also not to vilify the past, not over rose lens it. There were failings but rather than history wash them, lets spotlight & learn.

There may be a lot of points of view about setting/defining your legacy, but we are looking here at the outcomes of legacy as foundational blocks for our future selves.
Can we see foundational blocks that we are laying today, even if we dont know that is what they are? Is our development and utilisation of social media something our future selves may look back on and say “ ah, yes, that was the Pandoras box, but we didnt know. What are we burning today to de-power our future legacy. Are we looking equitably at all peoples around us today.

What markers or signals can we use to consider this, knowing that we overestimate in the short term and vastly underestimate in the legacy building term.

Maybe we should all have consideration for a little lepidopterology….

The Legacy of Alan McNasty: A Fairytale #38 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

Its a fairytale. C.K. Chesterton wrote that “Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. The child has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a way to slay the dragon.” In the legend of McNasty its important to remember that evil also ends.

Total Words

941

Reading Time in Minutes

4

Key Takeaways:

  1. What seems permanent isn’t
  2. Evil also ends.
  3. Legacy can be much shorter than you think.

About Dermot Casey:

Fan of Strategic Mischief.
A Catalyst, synthesist, and ever curious.
Into Innovation, books, tea, and occasional dips in the sea.
CEO at IRDG. Former lifeguard. Featured on Irish Starter Pack 2 on Bluesky. Godless, 80s child still into SF&F and a better society.

ContactingDermot Casey:

You can connect with Dermot on Bluesky, LinkedIn or send him an email

By Dermot Casey

There’s a ballad of Alan McNasty and his legacy of evil.

In Carraigorms halls where the dark shadows fell,
Alan McNasty governed, his heart cold as hell.
Gone now his spirit, like a ghost in the night,
Yet in whispered corridors, lingers his blight.
His reign commenced under a shadowed veneer,
A death cloaked in secrecy, masked by fear.
A mortal taken by magical hands awry,
Silenced were voices, no soul dared to defy.
The fairy tale goes deeper.

Alan McNasty is gone now. A ghost. But not the kind that lingers in the hallways with a translucent mist; the sort that clings to the corners of rooms, a gloomy presence felt not seen, his legacy the chill of a draft in an otherwise warm room. He began his illustrious career as the principal of Carraigorm Academy, an exclusive private school that charged tuition fees hefty enough to fund a small lunar expedition. Carraigorm, under his rule, was less Hogwarts and more what happens if Atilla the Nun had been given free rein to design a school with Donald Trump as her consultant.

The legend began in earnest in as he ascended to the headmaster’s office. His first act, notoriously unmagical yet darkly wizardly, involved the cover-up of a scandalous incident. A student from a rival academy kicked to death and potentially incriminating witness statements McNasty took were strangely misplaced and magically vanished disappearing at the exact moment they were needed most, leaving only bafflement and suspicions in their wake.

But the darkness of McNasty’s reign wasn’t just about what he did; it was about what he undid. Alan ruled not just with an iron fist but with a heart of stone. Love, that most potent of magics, was alien to him. His heart, a joyless vacuum, incapable of the warmth that filled the hearts of normal people. This void left him an empty shell, a man stitched together with threads of duty and power, devoid of the substance that makes a soul whole.

Alan McNasty’s approach to crises of a more personal and delicate nature was equally devoid of empathy. When adults souls haunted by decades old abuse sought his refuge, they found not a protector but a persecutor. His infamous retort to their pleas for help—“Fuck off and come back with a solicitor”—echoed not just through the halls but through the years, a chilling refrain that reminded all that the School was not a sanctuary but a battleground.

Within the walls McNasty fostered a cult. Many staff, under his dominion, were less colleagues than minions. Dissent was met not with discussion but with mysterious misfortunes. His allegiance to the Magical Order of the Iona Stone, a group as outdated in their thinking as they were in their fashion sense, shaped his policies and poisoned his principles. His malign presence sucked hope from the very air.

The malevolence that marked his tenure wasn’t just a product of his actions but of his essence. Like a prion, that rogue protein known for its deadly transformations, McNasty seemed to warp the very fabric of many of those around him, bending them towards a dark mimicry of his already darkened soul. He was the catalyst for a cascade of folding misfortunes that whispered through the corridors, turning potential joy into utter despair.

But then he was gone. The corridors, once a silent testament to McNasty’s reign, now buzz with a cautious optimism. Within weeks of his departure the very air in the school changed. , The academy reshapes itself into a place not of fear, but of possibility. His legacy is the damage he did while he was there. Men unmade in manhood. Distorted views and damage to students and teachers.

The darkness that once seemed so impenetrable is now filled with the light of stars stubborn enough to shine through. McNasty’s legacy, a lesson in the dangers of unchecked power and loveless leadership, becomes a cautionary tale told in the flickering light of the fireplace, a story to guide the next generation of wizards who will, hopefully, lead with hearts unafraid to love

For the first time in a long time the halls resonate with the sound of rebuilding.

C.K. Chesterton wrote that “Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. The child has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a way to slay the dragon.” In the legend of McNasty its important to remember that evil also ends.

Christina Ryan. An Appreciation. #37 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

So what do we leave behind? Memories. Mementoes. Family. Feelings. Keepsakes. The mundane and yet also the ineffable. Legacy, like all of Congregation’s topics, is imposingly huge. But like all huge topics it’s composed of smaller pieces. My Grandmother was one of those smaller pieces. And this is about her.

Total Words

677

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. What we leave behind – objects, memories, feelings – is like a set of clues.
  2. From the seemingly insignificant you can extrapolate a life.
  3. No life is unexceptional.
  4.  Take my Grandmother, for example.

About Richard Ryan:

I am an advertising copywriter who lives in New Jersey with a wife, three daughters and a rotating cast of dogs.

I work at a NY agency called Something Different, where I write mainly TV commercials, for which there had been slowly reducing demand, until the streaming companies decided that making money was probably a good idea after all. So, if you chose the Disney+ subscription with ads, my family thanks you.

This will be my second Cong. I have spent the last year enthusiastically talking about it to anyone who agreed to listen – and many who did not.

After 30 years in advertising I have yet to write even one memorable jingle, so my own legacy is unclear.

Contacting Richard Ryan

You can connect with Richard via email

By Richard Ryan

Chrissie, my Grandmother, hid bayonets inside her bed posts, keeping them from the Black and Tans. I think it’s okay to admit that now – the Good Friday Agreement and all.

She worked hard. Multiple jobs. Mostly cleaning.

She used to come to our house on Wednesdays for dinner. She did not approve of frozen Brussels sprouts. And – to her daughter-in-law’s mortification – she could always tell.

Special occasions she was fond of a TK American Cream Soda – a strange tasting drink they don’t make any more because Europe.

Chemicals weren’t an issue back then. Nor health.

Once, as she sat at our dining room table, her 80-year-old smoker’s lungs audibly wheezing, my Dad became convinced there was a cat outside. He had us all stop and listen. She held her breath as long as she could, but you can only do so much.

Her husband died. Young. But not as young as her first child – Michael – at 9 months. Or her second Eileen – who was 11. Two sons lived.

Later she had a friend named Mick. In hindsight, he might have been more than a friend. But apparently he took more than he gave. So he may also have been less than a friend.

She lived just on the edges of the inner city. Drimnagh. Rialto. Corporation house. Hard.

When I brought home a girlfriend, first question she asked me was “what time do her parents want her home?” Like many Dublin women I’m guessing she was smarter than she looked. Which was – as I see her – a curly head with a triangular scarf, deeply creased face. No body as I can recall. Though I heard that, once, a famous American painter came to her school and had her model for a portrait – An Irish Cailín – that hung in the National Gallery for two weeks.

She gave me money and would buy me slightly cooler presents than she bought my sisters. I seem to recall that. But not with the embarrassment I should. The Warlord Annual every year. Selection box. Once, a Matchbox Loop-the-Loop Stunt Track.

She brought me to see Star Trek The Movie. In the Adelphi. It’s the first film I remember seeing. I don’t know if she liked it.

After she died, my Dad, when he saw the body, said it wasn’t her. That she was gone.

So, legacy:

One quarter of my genes are hers.

I have a mass card with her picture on.

A sense of having come from something solid.

And all I just shared. Which is everything I remember.

It’s not much. Considering.

A Trail of Accidental Legacies #36 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

’ve been on the no-plan plan, tripping and stumbling through careers, courses, and callings. My submissions to Congregation over the last 12 years demonstrate this horizontal trajectory from essays on marketing, design, technology, the arts, community activism and for God’s sake I can’t remember half of them. It has been interesting and as it happens, I’ve stumbled into a few legacy projects.

Total Words

1,299

Reading Time in Minutes

5

Key Takeaways:

  1. Legacy projects find you but it’s up to you to follow through.
  2. You can’t set out to build a legacy project, you start something and it happens and only afterwards you realise it’ll outlive you.
  3. You never know where the journey will take you but it’s one hell of a ride
  4. Forget about assets, showing you cared for humanity is a legacy worth leaving.

About Joy Redmond:

Joy Redmond is a Multidisciplinary Artist from Gorey. She writes fiction, essays and drama and has recently taken up printmaking to tell visual stories. Joy has received Literature and Visual Arts awards from the Arts Council and was mentored by Eilis Ni Dhuibne under The National Mentoring Programme. Joy works part time helping young people change the world. Previously, Joy worked in marketing, research, design and technology roles since the early days of the Internet and mentors widely.

Contacting Joy Redmond:

You can connect with Joy via email, check out her projects on Joy Redmond , her art or Instagram profiles.

By Joy Redmond

I’ve been on the no-plan plan, tripping and stumbling through careers, courses, and callings. My submissions to Congregation over the last 12 years demonstrate this horizontal trajectory from essays on marketing, design, technology, the arts, community activism and for God’s sake I can’t remember half of them. I never worried what my CV looked like [frankly not good] and allowed myself the time and opportunity to try whatever took my fancy. It has been interesting and as it happens, I’ve stumbled into a few legacy projects.

During the first few days of the pandemic, when out walking in my local woods, I had an epiphany thinking we need to record this moment in time. I mooted it in a WhatsApp group with some fellow writers and we decided to start an online forum to publish any writing in response to Covid_19. We hoped to document the Irish experience but were blown away by the submissions from all over the world. The entire Pendemic.ie collection is now preserved in UCD Special Collections for future generations to visit. Tick.

Then a few years ago, some friends asked if their son could do his TY work placement with me. Being paralysed from the neck down and on a ventilator with an entourage of nurse and PA, he wasn’t exactly an attractive candidate for work experience. We decided to do a project around wheelchair access to our local beaches and it escalated into a full blown campaign and I’m happy to say that our local beach, Ballymoney, is now wheelchair accessible. We even have an accessible toilet, and the entire community benefited from a trendy outdoor shower and a bench that was built into the new wall – HQ for the local swim community to gather for our morning tea. Tick. The shocking thing about this project was that it was quite easy – a bit of a website, an online petition, a few press releases and in fairness to my protégé, a lot of lobbying but it was done. Maybe it was easy for me because I have a background in marketing and web development but it got me thinking that if two of us could achieve so much with so little then what about scaling it up so I’ve since joined Young Social Innovators and I’m helping hundreds of young people to make the world a better place. Rewarding.

So I’ve done the cultural and the local legacy project, I’m doing my bit with the youths but what about the personal? What can I pass on to my sons apart from this house and my blind optimism, my curiosity, and a love affair with nature and water, travel, food and the arts?

I got the idea to write a book of letters to my adult sons when I was at the John Hewitt International Summer School back in 2019 but shelved it to work on other projects. Then I signed up for a Creative Non Fiction course as part of a local Arts Festival in 2022 and the facilitator urged me to complete it after working with me on two chapters. I’m so happy to have heeded her advice because now it’s done.

Each letter is a story from my past and the postscript is some form of learning. Often, our children don’t realise we have had a life or continue to have full lives beyond their perception of us as parents. The letters vary from love, loss, work, travel to general observations on life. Some are funny while others deal with difficult topics such as grief, separation, and feeling lost. It is not intended for me to sound cool or to whinge but to simply impart what I have learned over the past 50 years. Ultimately, it’s a love letter to them.

Both my sons have read ‘Do not swim with strangers and other letters to my sons’ and the eldest said it would be something they would treasure for ever. His little brother said it was interesting but ‘an editor would pick out the finer details of grammar, punctuation and syntax.’ Of course the final chapter cannot be written because it doesn’t have an ending yet. I’m a devil for writing books and plays and doing nothing with them so this final chapter is a tale of triumph over adversity, grit, determination, tenacity, whatever you want to call it but I’m at the trying to get published stage. Maeve Binchy once said she could wall paper her house with the volume of rejections. I certainly have enough for at least one wall in my home studio. A few of my letters are about various endurance sports I’ve done over the years but they no longer impress me. So what if I rowed to Wales, all I had to do was train harder, sleep and eat well better, smoke less or not at all and my body did the rest. Creative pursuits are a whole new ball game. To keep going when you’ve no control over the outcome, to invest so much time and energy when the return is so small even if you get published, the maths don’t add up but I’m going to persevere because that’s another lesson for my sons to just keep going. So the picture I’ve posted is of a handful of us who marched down the centre of our town’s main street last week to mark the anniversary of the war in Gaza – the red banner we’re carrying symbolises a river of blood. I showed my sons the photo at the weekend and my son joked that he was sure Netanyahu was quaking in his boots. I know those 20 minutes won’t change or save lives in Gaza but perhaps in twenty year’s time, when my grandchildren are doing some history homework and ask their dear old Gran what it was like to see this serialised across the media, I won’t answer saying something like, oh yes that but that was the year we were getting the extension and we had a nightmare with the architect. Wasn’t it Maya Angelou who said something like, people will forget what you said and did but not how you made them feel? Showing we cared or even thought about anything beyond ourselves is a legacy worth leaving.

Legacy and the Good Ancestor #35 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

Changing representative democracy (or electoral fundamentalism) into real deliberative democracy is the way forward to impact our future prospects.

Total Words

784

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. Citizen´s assembly
  2. Communal democracy
  3. Reinventing politics
  4. Environmental personhood

About David Iguaz:

  • Former archaeologist
  • Political end environmental activist

Contacting David Iguaz:

You can connect with David by email

By David Iguaz

I am not lazy, I am just a slow thinker. That is my excuse to leave the writing of this piece to the last minute and it certainly has its advantages. One of them is that it gives you more time to ponder about the ins and outs of drafting a readable essay. The other one is that the probabilities of getting lucky and stumble upon an inspirational event increase as times goes by. This is exactly what happened to me recently upon reading Roman Krznaric´s book “History for Tomorrow” which incidentally has some close parallels to my inner desires to improve my legacy potential and increase the chances to influence people around me. In another inspirational piece, Krznaric talks about the idea of the “Good Ancestor” which talks about how to come to terms with the state of things and understand how they will irreparably influence future generations. And in my view that is exactly the point, that is to ask how to repair the state of the two fundamental pillars of our civilization, politics and the environment. Both are crucial to our very survival as a species.

As far as the former is concerned Ireland is in the forefront of such a repair job with the adoption of the citizen´s assemblies. As Krznaric rightly puts it “Citizen´s assemblies seem to embody the very best of the communal democratic tradition”. This tradition has been going on for centuries, ever since the Athenian democracy in the 5th century BCE and has known enlightening examples such the Althing parliament in Iceland (930-1798 CE) and the Rhaetian Free State (1524-1799) whose legacy lives on in Switzerland which conducts more referendums than any other nation in the world. On the contrary Spain and Portugal, countries where I have lived most of my life, are still at the backwaters of such a movement and the degradation of the political and environmental situation in these countries creates the urgent need for a clear break of the actual status quo and towards the adoption of a more deliberative democracy.

I think it is fair to say that we are pillaging the inheritance of our descendants and colonising their future by carelessly dumping waste and consuming resources. Our future generations are being rendered powerless. There is hope however. There are signs that tides may be turning. For example the Future Design Movement in Japan is currently aiming at eliminating the short term cycles that dominate politics by drawing on the principle of 7th nation decision making practiced by many Indigenous American communities. They gather and 50% they have to imagine they are residents on the year 2060. These future residents advocate for more changes in their cities, from improvement in the health care system to climate change action: It is like a future citizen´s assembly to extend our vision far beyond the now.

This where the good ancestor in me comes to life. Having been positively influenced by these currents of thought I am now directly involved in the creation of a citizen´s assembly in an area North of Lisbon that will debate by mid-November the way forward to decontaminate two rivers and find solutions to reconvert the area so the local inhabitans may once more enjoy the natural habitat around them. We are still a long way away from granting legal personhood to Nature but a movement has started to do just that to River Whanganui in New Zealand or the Ganges in India. The organization Our Children´s Trust has filed a landmark case against the US government on behalf of 21 youngsters campaigning for their legal right to have a safe climate and healthy atmosphere for them and future generations.

We do not realize it but most of us are already involved in politics from the moment we step out of our doorsteps. When we engage in a conversation and exchange points of views with someone we do just that: politics. Unfortunately the word has become a swearword in today´s society thanks to the subversion of our flawed democratic system. It is our duty to change it in order to to revitalize democratic decision making and to turn electoral fundamentalism a relic of the past.

Let´s all become good ancestors within our possibilities and leave a long lasting legacy, shall we?

What’s in a Word? #34 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

I struggled getting my head around legacy and what it meant to me and for me.

Total Words

442

Reading Time in Minutes

2

Key Takeaways:

  1. Legacy in use as a noun since the 16th century but the computer industry turned it into an adjective in the 1980s.
  2. The dictionary didn’t help much in defining what legacy means.
  3. In Irish legacy opened up the whole new set of meanings and possibilities to better understand it.
  4. Be careful of the tyranny of legacy

About Liam Ó Móráin:

Liam is an engineer by profession and an innovator by vocation. Working with global banks on creating the bank of the future.

Contacting Liam Ó Móráin:

You can connect with Iain via email

https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamomorain/

By Liam Ó Móráin

Legacy: what’s in a word? I found it a struggle to personalize the word or put context or meaning to it. I couldn’t own it or use it immediately on saying it. It terms of my work in IT, legacy is a lot of trouble and best avoided. In my personal life does I struggled to give it relevance: when is it appropriate to have a legacy or to think about legacy.

Merriam-Webster offered two definitions: in use as a noun since 1514 and as an adjective since 1984. As noun it is used to describe a bequest or gift, something transmitted or received from the past, or membership of an organization based on familial relationships. As adjective, it is related to older/outdated technology, systems, and processes. So unfortunately I found little to work on from M-W. Chat GPT wasn’t much help either in creating a meaningful mind map of ‘legacy’ that I could use.

Decided to see what the Irish equivalent of legacy offered and it came up with ‘legáid’ as in bequest and ‘oidhreacht’ to cover the IT world. From an anthropological perspective ‘oidhreacht’ opens up the whole world of heritage, nature, of place. This afforded agency and I began to formulate what legacy could potentially mean to me:

1) as a proud Mayo man knowing that the legacy of the All-Ireland in the 1950s plus the tyranny of that legacy over the 8-odd unsuccessful appearances in All Irelands in the this century means we are confident of the possibilities that the future holds and we never give up hope;

2) as an engineer, the depth and breadth the profession’s legacy affords to help solve problems and build a better future;

3) and a legacy in which we, through our day-to-day personal and professional interactions, leave the world in a better place for future generations to enjoy and thrive.

What a Musical Can Tell Us About Legacy #33 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

Exploring what the musical Hamilton says about legacy.

Total Words

679

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. You can’t define how other people will see your legacy
  2. Even if you make huge sacrifices for your legacy, other people may not recognise what you have done.
  3. Depending on what you want, (2) may not matter.

About Iain Morrow:

A climate and software professional who has been living in Connemara for the last 10 years.

Contacting Iain Morrow:

You can connect with Iain via email

By Iain Morrow

My 14 year old son is obsessed with the musical Hamilton. So finally, we went to see it a few weeks ago. And it’s a fantastic show!

If you haven’t seen it, you might be wondering why it’s relevant. Well, Hamilton is all about legacy. It’s about one man’s burning desire to secure his legacy through his political work and his writings. A man who was very conscious that he didn’t have long to make his mark, and who wrote “like he’s running out of time”. A man who subordinated his personal life to the pursuit of what he thought would be his legacy: as one of the Founding Fathers of America. And these weren’t just a few late nights when he could have spent time with his wife and children. You could reasonably argue that he sacrificed his family itself in pursuit of his political and intellectual legacy. His wife points out that family is legacy, but that doesn’t matter to him, until it is lost.

Stories about politically ambitious men are not unusual. For me, though, the most important point in Hamilton is that he failed. Before the musical, few people knew his name or what he did. He wasn’t a household name like Jefferson or Washington.

Now the failure is not through lack of effort. It’s because “you don’t get to decide who tells your story”, as the musical says. In other words, how the world sees your legacy won’t be decided by you since by definition, you won’t be around.

The person or people who do “tell your story” might not be much like you either. In this case, the musical was written by a man born in 1980, 225 years after Alexander Hamilton himself. Those years have been – to say the least – eventful. How faithfully do you think someone born in the year 2200 might interpret your own legacy? How much will they really understand you? They might focus on things you did that you don’t see as core to your legacy. Hamilton’s wife, for example, outlived him by half a century and spent time promoting an orphanage that they founded. That’s not a bad thing to be remembered for, but it has little to do with the political arena where Hamilton spent his time and energy.

At this point, you might be thinking this is all a bit depressing. Even with huge effort and sacrifice, you can’t guarantee the legacy you want.

It made me wonder whether, if he had known this, Alexander Hamilton would have done anything differently. He might have decided that he’d spend more time with his family, or let someone else write all those essays about the US Constitution.

The answer to this question goes to two important points about the desire for legacy. The first is your own drive and personality – you might be a workaholic who uses ‘legacy’ as an excuse to spend more time at your desk.

But the more important point is about the difference between your impact on the world after you are gone, and how people perceive that. In Hamilton’s case, as one of the framers of the US Constitution amongst other things, his impact was immense. It just wasn’t recognized as arguably it should have been. That might be a problem if your view of legacy is how you are remembered. But if your view of legacy is that the most important thing is the lasting change you make, maybe Hamilton didn’t fail after all.