OPINION (AN COLÚN): Walking in knee-deep heather through the cloud

On Saturday morning, after a week spent seated at my desk, I wanted to get out into the hills and enjoy some good exercise, as well as immersing myself in a place of peace and beauty.
I was worried about possible icy roads. Ending up in a ditch would certainly spoil one's weekend! I checked met.ie (usually a reliable weather forecaster). The temperatures would be cold but above freezing, therefore I decided to buail an bóthar. (By the way, I place no faith in long-range weather forecasts. Forecasts after five to seven days are considerably less accurate, and shouldn't be trusted).
It was quite an effort to leave the cosy warmth of my bed at 6 in the morning and emerge into the frigid air. I quickly put on three layers of very warm hillwalking gear and gathered my stuff for a day out in the hills on a January day in Ireland, with all the possible challenges which that brings.
The roads were thankfully ice free and within an hour and three quarters I arrived at my starting point in the Galty Mountains. I'm very familiar with the Galtees, having walked in them countless times over the last three decades. I find them aesthetically pleasing mountains to look at. There is something about their shape, their significant height, the many streams that score lines down their slopes, that charm the eye.
I parked at the Lough Muskry trailhead. This is a very popular spot, and whenever I come here there are always other walkers present, either returning from their climb or about to set off. My walk followed a forest track with a beautiful mountain gorge and gushing stream far below to the left. This gorge was picturesque and could have been an alpine setting. I imagined that the famous Romantic painters of the 19th Century would have become quite enthused if they had seen it. On I pressed, up the hill, until I left the Coillte forest behind and emerged onto the open hillside. Here I left the trail behind, and following a west bearing on my compass, ascended the rough ground of Knockastakeen mountain, steeply upwards through the knee-high heather. I was now in cloud, which would be my constant companion for the next few hours, meaning regular checking of my map and compass bearing. My breathing became heavier and I wiped beads of sweat from my brow.
As so often when climbing a hill my mind was absorbed in thought. For a while I was thinking about various problems and worries in my own life and how I would navigate them without falling off a cliff and coming to harm! Possible solutions to worrying situations and tricky conundrums gradually arose in my brain. I find the benefits of hillwalking for brainwork immense. Each week can throw unwelcome stuff at you, and a weekend hillwalk can be a means of coping with life's problems, and sometimes finding solutions.
Being a journalist I am something of a news junkie and during Saturday's walk I was also mulling over national and international news. I felt a sense of despair and grief for the people of Iran and wondered, as I have done countless times since I was very young, why so many of the world's political systems bring evil and malevolence to their people? Politics should be about transformation and helping people (especially the vulnerable) but so often it deteriorates into power grabs, corruption and violence.
Ireland's prison system and Enoch Burke were also in my thoughts. Our prison system is in a scandalous state. I was shocked to read the findings of a recent report. This week a relative of a prisoner in one of the State's prisons told me his son is sleeping in a cell with four other people and a couple of them are sleeping on mattresses. Their sanitary conditions are also very poor. The psychiatric assessment system often leaves much to be desired. The great Russian writer Dostoevsky said the goal of prison should be to facilitate the “resurrection” of the fallen person, rather than solely to inflict suffering. Compassion, he said, not just raw punishment, is required for a truly civilised justice system. In Ireland we are very far away from a compassionate, civilised justice system.
The Enoch Burke saga has been going on now for three and a half years. It seems interminable or like a plot from a Kafka novel or Beckett play, where there is no end in sight and the suffering must perpetually continue. Surely there must be some answer to this issue, a compromise, a humane response? Burke was dismissed for “gross misconduct” arising out of his refusal to obey a direction of Wilson's Hospital School that a transgender pupil be addressed as “they”. Personally, I think secondary school teachers should not be compelled by their schools to refer to their students by their preferred pronouns. This is not because I am backward or wrong-thinking. Quite the contrary. It's because I am a liberalist. If a secondary school teacher, in any school in Ireland, does not wish to comply with his school's directions because of his sincerely held beliefs then he should not be persecuted or forced to comply. We have driven ourselves into an ideological cul-de-sac and we need to think hard about finding an off-ramp away from this Kafkaesque plot.

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