"Like a mighty river..."

Into the Memory Hole - Book launch

Thank you to those who made it to Kealy’s of Cloghran last Wednesday, 20 September, for the launch of my book, Into the Memory Hole: Despatches from the “world of lies”. I am grateful in particular to my son Stephen Bruce who chaired the event, and to our main speaker, Thomas Sheridan.

As I intimated in a previous bulletin, I hoped we could livestream the proceedings on YouTube. As it turned out this was not possible and I apologise to those who were disappointed on the day. If I can find any video footage or photos of the event I will publish them, probably in early October. In the meantime you will find a transcript of my own brief remarks below.

Before you read on please note this. What I said was aimed at a ‘mixed’ audience. Those at Kealy’s included family members and friends who followed the ‘rules’ so to speak. During the ‘pandemic’ they were jabbed, wore masks, etc. They may have been in the minority at last Wednesday’s event, but I’m sure they reflect most people’s feelings today, which is that the government did its best under difficult circumstances and that we should get back to ‘normal’ as quickly as possible.

That is the context. Here is what I said.

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Between March 2020 and February 2022, I did none of the following:

• Covered my face with a mask

• Rubbed my hands with gel or lotion before going into a shop or a church

• Took a PCR, Antigen, or other test

• Received any of the shots or boosters introduced in 2021

• Gave my contact details to staff in cafes or restaurants

• Avoided physical contact with members of my family or my community

This of course was the 2-year period during which we were told that a potentially lethal pandemic threatened our lives. The things I’ve mentioned were part of a battery of rules and regulations recommended, or imposed, to halt the spread of covid-19.

So why did I not go along with it all? To answer that question I have to take a little detour. I hope you will bear with me.

About the only TV programme I watch these days is The Chase. I love it! You’ll find it on one television station or another every single day. They must make them in batches. I’ve rarely seen the same show twice and I watch it 2 or 3 times a week.

For those who don’t know it, The Chase is a quiz show in which ordinary people answer general knowledge questions in the hope of winning a big cash prize. The contestants must choose between three possible answers to each question. They have only a few seconds to press one of the buttons. It could be a), b), or even c). So if they don’t know the answer they have to make a quick guess.

Sometimes, when a contestant picks a wrong answer, he or she will say that they were not surprised, that they were leaning towards the correct answer but changed their mind at the last minute. Now this could be baloney, and maybe in a few cases it is baloney. But most of the time what the player is really saying is that they over-ruled their instincts and went instead for what they believed to be a more logical answer.

When this happens, the host – the legend that is Bradley Walsh - tells them that they should always go with their gut. He is effectively saying that maybe the little voice inside is a sounder guide to the truth than they think.

When the Taoiseach announced the steps his government was taking in response to the WHO’s declaration of a pandemic, my little voice wasn’t just whispering, it was shouting. Maybe I couldn’t put my finger on it there and then, but I knew in my bones that something was off. However, unlike the contestants in The Chase, I had the luxury of time to figure out in my head why I felt so uneasy in my heart.

There was something else as well. Over the years I have found that, just because people are in positions of authority, I shouldn’t automatically believe what they say. That’s true whether they are doctors, politicians, college professors, bankers, or anyone else I used to put on a pedestal. I won’t say I have become cynical - well a little maybe - but I am definitely more sceptical than I used to be.

So when I listened to Varadkar talking about covid I decided to dig a bit deeper and see whether or not my first instincts were correct. It did not take long to figure out the truth of the matter: that I and my fellow citizens were being deceived - on a grand scale.

I don’t know why we have been deceived. These things are usually about money or power, and maybe it’s as simple as that. Who knows? We might find out one day. For now, all that matters to me is the fact that we are being deceived. Of that I am convinced. 100%

Now I don’t know about you, but I hate being duped. That is why I never wore a mask nor did any of the other things I talked about earlier. So the fact that I am still alive and healthy today means either that I am very, very lucky - or else I was right to heed those instincts.

Why do I raise this at all at a pleasant social gathering for the launch of my book? Because that is what my book is about: the lies we have been told - and are being told all the time about the world in which we live. After all, the title of my book is, Into the Memory Hole: Despatches from the “world of lies”.

First of all there are the ‘little’ lies we tell each other, and I mention a few of these from my own past that have stayed with me over the years. But mostly I go into what you might call the ‘big’ lies or - more accurately - the ‘public’ lies that are more familiar to us, like the first Gulf war in 1990 or the case of the Birmingham Six.

As I began to do my research it soon became clear that these ‘public’ lies didn’t begin or end with covid-19. I realised that our whole civilisation, our culture, is built on an enormous slag-heap of lies. Is this what George Orwell was talking about when he coined the phrase “world of lies” in his book, Nineteen Eighty-Four?

For those of you not familiar with Orwell’s book, it is a science fiction novel about a future totalitarian super-state ruled by a tyrant known as Big Brother. In the blurb to my own book, I refer to Nineteen Eighty-Four as “a prophetic novel”. I called it “prophetic” because I believe a great deal of what Orwell wrote about in Nineteen Eighty-Four has come to pass in our present-day world - although not quite in the form he predicted. George Orwell wrote his book in the late-1940s, but he must have guessed what was coming down the tracks long before then. For instance, this is from an article Orwell wrote in January 1939:

It is quite easy to imagine a state in which the ruling caste deceive their followers without deceiving themselves. Dare anyone be sure that something of the kind is not coming into existence already? One has only to think of the sinister possibilities of the radio, State-controlled education and so forth, to realise that ‘the truth is great and will prevail’ is a prayer rather than an axiom.¹

The world that Orwell imagined is the one we now live in: “a state in which the ruling caste deceive their followers without deceiving themselves”. OK, maybe some of our politicians do delude themselves about what they are engaged in. But deep down they must realise they are involved in deception against the rest of us.

So we are living in what George Orwell described as a “world of lies”. But despite Orwell’s use of the word ‘prayer’ in the article I quoted from, he was not a religious man. I am not a particularly religious man either but I do retain a deep faith in Jesus Christ. According to one of the Gospel accounts of his life, Jesus had something to say about the “world of lies” too.

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.²

Quite stark isn’t it, brutal even? One thing that strikes me when I read that passage is that maybe our “world of lies” is a lot older than I thought.

Whatever you think about what I say here, or in the book – and I’m sure we could argue over many of these things – we have much more in common than whatever separates us. All of us - jabbed and unjabbed, believers and atheists, vegans and carnivores, even Dubs who are divided by the Liffey into northsiders and southsiders – all of us, here now and watching at home, are united by one thing. We are members of the one human family. Let us not forget that.

I should probably stop now. I am sure you are eager to hear from Thomas Sheridan – I know I am. But before I hand back to Stephen I want to say a few final words about Ireland itself. Historians like to deal in evidence and proper sources. But what I have to say is more of a fable or myth than anything I can reference in a citation. It might be true. I will leave you to decide.

I am imagining an Ireland of long, long ago when grace flowed through the land like a mighty river. This river of grace enabled the people to live as people should, free and happy. I believe that river still flows today, but it has been reduced to an underground stream, little more than a trickle in fact. Yet it is still there and, if we can find it, I think we can get it going again, even better than before. If we can do that, the land and the people will be replenished once more.

Thank you.

1. George Orwell, Seeing things as they are: Selected journalism and other writings, ed. Peter Davison (London 2014), pp. 75-6.

2. John, 8:44.