Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on January 01, 2016, 11:49:03 AM
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New Years' days don't always bring new hope. I have many friends who lost ancestors in this tragedy and every Ne'er Day, there is the shadow of remembrance.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Iolaire.
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I suppose it is inevitable that there will be such a remembrance if there is an expectation of jollity and new hope pinned upon that day. On average I believe there are about 156,000 deaths a day on the planet and I doubt whether New Years day would be any different. If you multiply that with, say, 10 friends and relatives, that's an awful lot of grief, and that's only one day of one year. On the other hand there are 370,000 births a day which might give cause for celebration for some. Multiply that with 10 and that's an awful lot of sex.
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Except the hope wasn't really about a new year, just men returning home from a savage war to a small island already ravaged with deaths for people to die in sight of home.
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OK, I misunderstood your first sentence.
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Except the hope wasn't really about a new year, just men returning home from a savage war to a small island already ravaged with deaths for people to die in sight of home.
Yes, these people had survived the horrors of the Western Front and were on their way home to a peaceful life without the fear of a violent death at any second.
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The New Year's day date of the tragedy just adds to the poignancy by its irony.
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"God" moves in mysterious ways ... the sadistic old sod.
I don't really see it as appropriate to divert this sort of thread into another jejune antitheism piece.
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I don't really see it as appropriate to divert this sort of thread into another jejune antitheism piece.
OK man, I will remove it.
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Thanks, Leonard, appreciated
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A friend has just told me that their grandfather survived this because they shut the gates at Kyle so that he didn't get on the boat. The boat was the Iolaire. It will be an odd day on the centenary.
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It's not forgotten. A very dear friend of mne - a native of Berneray - lost her great uncle on the Iolar. By horrific happenstance, her husnand's uncle was lost on the Hood.
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To mark the centenary of the tragedy
http://www.stornowayportauthority.com/lights-iolaire-installation-stornoway-harbour/
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Aye. I have a friend who hailed from Bernaray, and whose great uncle was one of those lost on the Iolaire. Margaret talks of a great emptiness which haunted Lewis for decades; not only had the island lost proportionally more of its' young men to the war than the general populace, but the further disaster of losing two hundred more all but destroyed the community. That it survived was due to the older generation of men who had been too old to fight, and reliance of under-age, youngsters sent to work in croft and farm, who were themselves traumatised. It has been argued convincingly that the 'Wee Free' attitudes which pervade the island today owe much to the clinging to traditions which kept the community together. After all, on the mainland, The Free church folk are no different from CofS members outwardly....though unlike the Kirk, their membership is growing.
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A friend has done an animated film of the tragedy, being shown on BBC Alba a number of times in the next few days. It's very moving.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17299892.how-an-animator-hopes-to-heal-the-wounds-of-iolaire-tragedy/
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This is really good
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001tyz?fbclid=IwAR1iM5qFOx-Y-QeP5b4NS2VSM9A0uAZqUcaN_vUenMwN7IR0RpVmEoicjyI
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Another year, another anniversary
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Another year, another anniversary
I don't know if you're familiar with the brilliant Skipinnish, NS, but this is worth a listen.
Powerful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA2LCLidj1Y