Jean's Journal: Futureville

By Jean Farrell

I wonder are there ICA meetings in Heaven?

If there are, this band of mighty Athlone women (pictured above) would definitely attend them.

Their names are, from the back, Margaret Macken, Lily Allen, Kay Geraghty, Mae Walker, Angela Coyle, Kitty Francis, Nuala O’Brien, Pauline Harrington, Teresa Keaney, Kathleen Walker, Mrs Cunningham, Joan Carty, Nancy Kearney, Maura Campbell, Mrs Travers, Margaret Erraught, Maura Longworth, Mrs Lackey, Rita Kenny, Mrs Doyle, Ruth Griffin, Nora Greene, Mrs Nicholson, Mairead Loughman, Jean Hamill, Doreen Quirke, Eileen Egan, Teresa O’Flaherty, Mary Leech, Mrs Cunniffe, Julia O’Donoghue, May Dockery, Mrs Bailey, Una Duffy, Gladys McElroy. Seated: Lily McCormack, Katie Flynn, Gretta Baird, Molly Young and Mary O’Brien.

It made me sad to type these names because so many of them are very familiar to me.

They were my mother’s friends, through thick and thin. She loved attending her weekly meeting of the ICA. Hail, rain or snow, she walked across the bridge, to The Royal Hotel, every Monday night.

All these women were born about 100 years ago, into a very different Ireland. They mostly stayed at home rearing their big families. These wise women knew the value of education. They could clearly see the advantage it was for females to be financially independent. For this reason they made sure that their daughters stayed on in school. This was so that as they could have an easier life than some of their mothers had. And many of us have benefited greatly from their foresight.

On the RTE programme Futureville, we saw an Athlone beyond our imagination. We saw all sorts of inventions that seem impossible to imagine.

This is exactly how the women in this photograph would feel if they saw what we have now.

Some farmers’ wives, amongst them, would have milked a few cows by hand, every day and night. Imagine what they would think of huge milking parlours into which cows wander, at will.

In these (and I’m quoting,) "Sensors detect the cow’s position and attach robotic teat cups to the udder. They can also measure and analyse the milk flow, as well as monitor the cow’s health."

Imagine if one of these ICA women, unable to conceive naturally, heard about the wonders of IVF! She would find it impossible to believe that an egg could be taken from her body and be fertilised in a laboratory by her husband’s sperm. How amazed she’d be to know that this fertilised egg could be placed back into her body (or into some other woman’s womb) resulting in a live birth?

A lot of these women would have been reared in houses that had no electricity. An old granny told me that she never thought she’d see the day when she could plug her kettle into a hole in the wall, and it would boil.

If their parents saw us getting money out of a hole in the wall, they’d be fascinated indeed!

Previous generations would be astonished to hear that it is against the law to slap your own child, or that a person can marry a person of the same sex. They’d never believe that people would be foolish enough to buy clothes for dogs.

Would the mothers of many children, in this photograph, be shocked and horrified to see condoms for sale, on the counters of shops? Attitudes towards sex outside (and inside) marriage were so very different when they were young.

We’ve often heard the supposed funny version of sex education, long ago. On the morning of the wedding the mother-of-the-bride would tell her daughter, “Men do strange things, try not to take any notice.” Or, similar advice, “Brace yourself, Brigid.”

I often think of a story written by Maeve Binchy. It explains how women of that era thought. The parents, in the story, had completely fallen out with their daughter because she was living with her boyfriend. They wouldn’t even allow her to come home for Christmas.

Their justification for this was that their daughter was living in mortal sin and was in grave danger of going to Hell for all eternity. If they pretended that nothing was amiss, they would be helping their daughter towards damnation. Our adult children wouldn’t understand a word of that. We do!

Of course, what would amaze these ICA women most of all is the internet. Few of them had telephones in their houses. How astonished they’d be to know that nearly every person, over the age of twelve, has a phone in their pocket now? How unbelievable it would be to them to hear all that we can do on these phones.

I was chatting to a young woman, lately. She took out her phone, saying, “I must light my fire.” Opening an app on her smart phone, she pressed some buttons and told me that her fire would now be lighting in her sitting room.

Next, she opened another app and was able to record some television programme, to watch later.

I thought of all the above after I watched the Futureville programme on RTE One recently. How could any of these innovations be possible, I wondered. However, I know that they are possible because the world is changing all the time.

I read, ‘Everything that’s real had first to be imagined by people with vision.’ Every day people with vision are imagining future inventions. Scientists are making them happen. Anything is possible! So brace yourself, Brigid!

* This photo and names are in ‘Jean’s Journal 2’, on sale in The Athlone Book Shop at Burgesses and in other local shops, or by contacting me at: jeanfarrell@live.ie