![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5189992_2_articleinline_ECHO_20FEATURES_20John_20Arnold_20two_20youths_20standing_20in_20front_20of_.jpeg\" "\\"Two")
Two youths standing in front of a wynd of hay at the haggard at John’s home in 1910.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s the month of August in the year 2086. The summer is nearly over, and the temperatures are dropping back to near normality \u2013 a cool 36C by night and around 42C in the afternoon. There is great excitement all over the country as the 1986 Census of Ireland returns have just been released. Scholars of the robotic nature and AI-generated university professors have been poring over the statistics and figures trying to get a clearer picture of how people lived long, long ago.<\/p>\n
A child of ten is talking to his 125-year-old grandfather and asking him questions generated by the child\u2019s implanted-at-birth mega alternative braiwen. As the middle-aged grandfather steps out of his rocket-propelled lawn mower (an antique! lawns were outlawed in 2047) he recalls his youth of twelve decades earlier. \u2018Ah yes, every day we walked to the school -a building with different compartments (rooms) where teachers -ye call \u2018em \u2018educational relics\u2019 today- came in each day and told us how to learn. You see, back then every child had a brain the size of a walnut (very small) and year after year we \u2018learned\u2019 new things and gradually got to know more as we grew up\u2019. The puzzled-looking child doesn\u2019t seem to understand. \u2018But that sounds crazy and slow and ancient!\u2019 The old man sighed and shook his shoulders and replied: \u2018I know that with years of what they call genetic mechanisation and some sort of engineering that in this so-called \u2018modern\u2019 world every child before it\u2019s born gets fitted with an updated, upgraded and alchemistised braiwen so schools, universities and colleges are no longer needed -all closed down around 2070\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018What was 1986 like?\u2019 \u2018Well, that time we used be able to run our own country and a man from Clare, Hillery was the President and Fitzgerald was the Taoiseach or kinda Prime Minister\u2019. \u2018What were they for granddad?\u2019 \u2018Well you see we had a system called democracy where people-every one, could have a say in how the country was run. Ireland was a separate country then before the Americans and the Russians bought us out with billions of dollars and rupees for everyone twenty years ago\u2019. \u2018But it\u2019s great to be able to speak Russian and Yankee too- did ye learn them in the old schools?\u2019 \u2018Ah no, no not at all, we had Irish-our own language which was lovely and ancient and lyrical and musical\u2026\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n \u2018But,\u2019 the child interrupted, \u2018was it any good for money or business or jobs or profit \u2013 the things we all adore and cherish now?\u2019\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\u2018Ah but we had values then -not the value of everything in cents, dimes and dollars like today, but we loved songs and stories and tales of ancient times like the 1960s when television came, and hot water and inside toilets and electric light in every room.\u2019 \u2018Sounds gross,\u2019 said the ten-year old. \u2018What good are poems or stories or auld tales from when you were a child – no profit there- no accumulated assets or economic malustationability as we are programmed.. er I mean trained to evaluate today as nine-year-olds. \u2019<\/p>\n
He looked at his grandchild and thought that in this so called Global Economic Unit (world) how different things were now than even in 1986, the year of Chornobyl and the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. Back then we cared, the world cared and empathy and sympathy were shown in equal measure, but not anymore. Truly now the Global Mantra is survival of the fittest and forget about everyone else. Awful to imagine that human emotions like love and kindness and giving a helping hand are now frowned upon as being signs of weakness in a world system where power and wealth are the normal currencies of life.<\/p>\n
\u2018Did you ever learn a poem?\u2019 he quizzes\u2026\u2019 A poem, what\u2019s a poem?\u2019 \u2018Well, words written not for profit or glory or fame or self-advancement, but just to say what you mean and what you feel in your heart.\u2019 \u2018But the heart is just a functional body organ for the dispersal of blood through the extended organic mechanism of the body, that\u2019s what we were told the heart is for.\u2019 \u2018Ah wisha, I dunno what to say at all, at all -what is the world coming to and where will it all end? Let me think of a poem I can say to tell you how I feel now, then again I suppose you don\u2019t really understand what \u2018feelings\u2019 are all about.\u2019 \u2018Well once upon a time years ago people used be allowed play what they called \u2018games\u2019 where groups of men and women and boys and girls would play against each other in sports like hurling and football and..\u2019 \u2018But,\u2019 the lad interrupted \u2018they were all banned by the Supreme Leader about 40 years ago because they were dangerous, divisive and were in no way beneficial in the capitalisation of energy into economic advantage.\u2019 \u2018I know, I know,\u2019 said the old man, \u2018but let me tell you anyway- a man I knew called Bryan McMahon -I used often meet him at Listowel Races (banned too like all other sports in the world), well his son Gary was a good footballer -won an All Ireland with Kerry he did, well he wrote a grand few lines when his father was getting old -like I am now.\u2019 \u2018 But you\u2019re only a 125, that\u2019s not old.\u2019 \u2018 Well, I feel old and a bit lost too in this word, anyway I love these few lines -listen now listen and tell me what you think;<\/p>\n
\n Where are the days of my youth all gone?\n <\/p>\n
\n In the wink of an eye they\u2019ve flown\n <\/p>\n
\n Stolen by time that vagabond thief,\n <\/p>\n
\n I feel it in flesh and bone.\n <\/p>\n
\n How I laughed as I ran through the barefoot fields\n <\/p>\n
\n Full sure I would never grow old\n <\/p>\n
\n For I\u2019ve lived and I\u2019ve seen the leaves that were green\n <\/p>\n
\n Turn to a fine shade of gold.\u2019\n <\/p>\n
\u2018That\u2019s nice but what\u2019s barefoot men? \u2018Ah child we were young and wild and ran through the fields with neither stockings nor boots on.\u2019 \u2018And grand dad, what were boots?\u2019 And I explained, said all that glitters isn\u2019t gold -like the golden furze bushes and beauty is all around us and, like Padraig Pearse, sometimesmy heart is shaken with great joy, To see a leaping squirrel in a tree, Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk, Or little rabbits in a field at evening, Lit by a slanting sun, Or some green hill where shadows drifted by, some quiet hill where mountailly men hath sown.\u2019<\/p>\n
Then he asked, \u2018Are you a mountailly man?\u2019 The old man laughed.<\/p>\n
Two youths standing in front of a wynd of hay at the haggard at John’s home in 1910.<\/p>\n
Back now in 2026; well a few months ago I came across a picture taken in our haggard around 1910 of two youths standing in front of a wynd of hay so yesterday, on the very same spot (the hayshed was erected in 1913) with granddaughter Clodagh May I too made a wynd of hay \u2013 just for the sake of doing it, ah yes back to the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018How do you mean -taking books to school? Did ye actually have real books made of paper in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,56073,327],"class_list":["post-634723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-arnold","tag-movies"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117087426039467322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}