Who is my neighbour

Who is my neighbour?

Madame Chairperson, the adjudicating panel and friends, Good Morning. Who is my neighbour? Who is your neighbour, may I ask? Do you have the slightest clue as to who lives so close beside you, the person who is only a stone's throw away?

I apologize for greeting you so early this morning with such probing questions. But do you have the answer? I think not. Gone are the days when a person, new to the area, would open the door to friendly faces often accompanied by the aroma of a freshly baked pie to welcome this newcomer. Gone are the days when one would pop next door to borrow a cup of sugar in the early morning in one’s dressing gown. No, such days of ease around our neighbours are truly gone. Instead of leaving our doors open to the world, we firmly lock them, keeping our children inside, refusing to let them play after a certain hour, wondering if it’s safe to let them play with the “new family”. Of course we would know if it was safe if we actually got to know this family – but do we take the time to? O f course not. We’re too busy living our fast-paced greedy self-centred little lives.

Just listen to my story of old Joe McElligot. A seventy-five year old bachelor, living alone in a cottage in a fairly populous rural community. One Sunday afternoon, as he was listening to a hurling match on the local radio station, a gang of masked youths broke into his house. They got away with twenty-three pounds that the old man kept in a cookie jar in his kitchen. Joe McElligot was bludgeoned to death in this horrific attack. All for a mere twenty pounds. Was that all his life was worth?

The old man’s body was not found for three ...