Chilled to the Bone

by Margaret O'Brien

Malin Head

Ruins at Malin Head

I now know what “bitter cold” and “chilled to the bone” means. We took a day off from learning about peacebuilding and took an excursion to the northerly most point in Ireland, Malin Head. A 30-ish minute drive from Derry, Malin Head Donegal feels remote, as if one had traveled to the end of the earth. The last miles are down a soggy, one lane road, barely wide enough for our small tour bus to navigate. I fastened my seatbelt as we wound toward the point. More than once I thought we would be asked to unload and help heave the bus out of the muck. From this vantage point, on a clear day you can see Scotland. We disembarked into the rain under an unsympathetic sky. This January day, the wind was blowing and biting, laughingly cutting through our clothes, making whimsy of our best attempts to say warm….or at the very least, not frozen. Feeling in my hands in a short 3 minutes, I ducked into a ruin to find some small semblance of forgiveness from the wind. The rain brought a new level of cold. The wind and the rain danced in concert around us, intent on testing our heartiness…I suspect the elements took bets, wondering how long we would last. We scurried back to the bus, feeling victorious that we had lasted as long as we had. The elements won.

Rubber bullet next to a 20 pound note.

This was not the only cold I felt today. On the drive out, Eugene, our driver-extraordinaire, shared some physical pieces from The Troubles. One such item was a rubber bullet. How benign one would think, a rubber bullet. It sounds so innocuous, when one not in the know conjures up an image in the head. Much less fatal than a lead bullet…surely. Rest assured a rubber bullet is not an innocent. It is approximately 6” long and 1.25” circumference. Rubber bullets were lethal and fired at children and young adults during The Troubles. Three children were killed during 1972/73…one was 11 years old, another child lost his vision. The rubber bullets were replaced by plastic baton rounds….and another 14 deaths were incurred. (bbc.com) Bullets, rubber-plastic-lead, are weapons of war. This is a political dispute, a social justice argument. I will never understand man’s inhumanity. That chills my bones.

Many and sharp the num'rous ills 

Inwoven with our frame! 

More pointed still we make ourselves, 

Regret, remorse, and shame! 

And man, whose heav'n-erected face 

The smiles of love adorn, - Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn! (Robert Burns, 1784)