Wasps and Waspiness Foichí agus a bheith cantalach

I was reading a very interesting article in a newspaper recently about WASPI women in England. They were a group of women who were outraged because some of them who were due to retire at 60 were told that they would have to work until they were 70 and they would not be getting the winter fuel allowance either. This double whammy had enraged them and so they formed Women Against State Pension Inequality or WASPI for short.’

This prompted me to write a few lines of a blog on wasps, waspiness, and people’s attitude to each other.

We are all familiar with the wasp. They were always ready for action when children returned to school in September, and we had a ready supply of “Waspese spray” in the school medical cabinet to counteract stings. We called it the waspy season and we were very vigilant towards the end of September because the wasps were dying off and there was supposed to be nothing worse than the sting of a dying wasp. A lot of us can recall being stung by a bee or wasp.

But there can be much worse than the physical sting. We hear of people launching a stinging attack on someone which can be hurtful. Is there anything worse than the barbed, hurtful, personal comment straight to your face or worse still nowadays online.

I know we can all be a bit waspy every now and again when our nerves are frayed, and we are at our wits end.

Maybe we were out too late the night before, had a few drinks too many or someone or something is driving you bonkers and no one can be right, and we cannot tolerate any other opinion. We can all be short-tempered and say something which we regret the moment the words have left our lips.

When people are over worked and under pressure from tiredness or general stress they can be more easily riled or as they say in Kerry you are very easily nettled.  Then again you have people who are permanently touchy, combative, snappish, short fused, prickly, grumpy, crotchety. How often I heard the comment to give him /her a wide berth today because they were like a briar.

Its just amazing the number of stressed people you meet in everyday life. We just never know what troubles they have personally, at home or in the workplace. There may be family illness or trouble with mortgages or general family financial affairs or a multitude of other causes.

My granny often told me to try and ignore hurtful or derogatory comments because you never know what is going on in people’s lives or minds or what troubles they may be encountering behind their four walls at home.

During my life I have encountered another annoying type of individual. This is the person who is very opinionated, talks over everyone else and is always right. As John B Keane said of this type of person ‘There is only room for one of them at each bar counter”.

I was on holidays in County Clare recently where there were a group of 10 Americans drinking in the bar of the hotel where we were staying. All was very amenable as they listened to one of the older members of the group talking about the second world war and his family members involvement in it. As the drink flowed his voice became more animated. His was the only voice heard after a while and the topic changed to American involvement in the Vietnam war. We were all getting a bit bored and short fused while his colleagues were making their excuses and slowly drifted away leaving him to his own devices staring into his pint while scoffing a measure of Jack Daniels. Yes, John B Keane was right, there was only room for one person in the bar who only wanted to listen only to himself in full voice.

The bar music for the night’s entertainment started up shortly afterwards and soon the Americans regrouped, and all was well with their world again while they drank and sang along to tuneful sounds like that lovely Clare song “The Cliffs of Dooneen” as it wafted out into the Wild Atlantic night air.

Life is hard and we all encounter problems and stressful situations on a regular basis. We can only press on and do our best to be less waspy and be more tolerant of those around us.

Mar a deirtear sa Ghaeilge “Táimíd curtha ar an saol seo chun grá a thabhairt dá chéile”.

Let us finally remember the words of Francoise-Marie Arouet, French writer 1694-1778 and better known as Voltaire “What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature”.

With those eloquent words of Voltaire, I bid you adieu till we blog again in two weeks time in October.

I hope you enjoy this and all my previous blogs. Bain taitneamh astu uilig. I look forward to your comments.

Mick O Callaghan 30/09/2024