Village of the Whispering Windows

A few years back, in one of the many village's that make up The Greater Dublin area, a man killed his own wife. Nothing new there you might remark. But this event had an unusual coda. In fact, to my way of thinking, even the trial verdict turned out to be unusual.

When the jury retired to consider it's verdict, I had an uneasy feeling that things would turn out badly, and, from my reading of the evidence, that was exactly what happened. The accused was convicted of manslaughter, not murder, proving once again my long-held theorem that justice and the law are uncomfortable suitor's.

But that was not the unusual coda. No sir. Immediately following the killing, the victim's husband attested that he had seen someone flee from the scene of the killing! Did he recognize the person? Well.....it looked like the man they employed as a gardener! Wow. Game, set and match to the husband. But things turned out differently, even though the gardener was immediately placed under suspicion and rigorously questioned by the police, it was the husband who was finally convicted of the crime.

The unusual coda turned up sometime after the trial. Driving alone one sunny afternoon, on a section of our new Interstate Highway just west of Limerick city, I chanced to tune-in to a radio chat-show. A male relation of the one-time under-suspicion gardener, had just contacted the show. And what he had to say was appalling!

Following the murder, his relation the gardener, had been sent to Coventry by the resident's of the village where he lived! In itself, that was bad enough, but worse was to follow! When the trial was over, and the verdict handed down, there was still no let-up! The good citizen's of the area carried on as though there had been no conviction. The gardener was still being ostracized.

The idea that a group of people could decide to don the mantle of judge and jury, and ignore the verdict of the legitimate trial (manslaughter or not), is so completely at odds with any sense of fair-play, as to be almost unbelievable. But the man on the radio was quite emphatic, it had happened, and was still happening!

But why? This is the 21st Century, we are not back at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. In a country that is regarded as Catholic, are there really so few Christians in our midst? Should that come as a surprise? Maybe we might pay more attention to the quote "Never confuse Catholism with Christianty".

That treatment of an innocent man was carried out by fully-paid-up members of the Church, so, where does their action leave them? Despite everything that has happened recently, there are still good priests within the church today. Perhaps it's some of their followers that are not up to scratch. Adopting a religious posture for about one hour every weekend, simply does not cut it.

One of the Ten Commandments deals exclusively with the creation and spreading of slander. From a footballing perspective, no matter which way you slice the apple, repeated offences should be a red-card offence. There should be a toll to be paid! But whether you have religion, or not, there is simply no excuse for the obnoxious treatment handed out to that particular man.

While the foregoing might be regarded as simply one isolated incident, there was a similar occurence in another village, some time back. Bad blood was generated when a propertly-deal went south, and a local man made some enemies. A slander was propagated, and some sanctimonious members of the community helped it on its way, even adding embelishments of their own. Like the gardener, the victim was ostracized by many village members. Things became so bad, that, after a while he decided to confide in the parish priest, a genuine and helpful person.

That approach appeared to work, as within a few weeks, a number of people resumed normal relations with the victim. However, it was too good to last. One of the original transgressors, who saw himself as a pillar of both the church and of the community, had no wish to be exposed as a liar, and with the help of some duplicitious friends, concocted more lewd tales of his enemy. The old saying "there's no smoke without a fire" was never more apt, and an innocent man's character was completely shredded, as other people got caught up in the frivolity of the occasion, and heaped more stories on the fire. By now, moving statues were careering down the street, and some very silly people were seeing apparition's, or at least they were seeing what they wished to see. The lies were ongoing and vicious. Being deemed a loner, or odd, was enough to commence open season on that person. Nothing very new there. The most often-asked question around this time, was "why would they do that?". But no-one wanted to know the answer! If enough people perpetrate a lie, then the slander becomes a fact!

Promises from some people that they would testify if a case of slander was ever contemplated, were never kept, and the man had to live with the lie, in the form of an ongoing nightmare! Nowadays, it appears that
slander is more popular than the truth. It is certainly more entertaining to believe the worst about an individual, than any alternative.

Just recently, in a top R.T.E. TV program, a catholic priest was accused of fathering a child in Africa. The priest took a case to Dublin's High Court, where, with the help of DNA tests, he proved that he had been accused in the wrong. (It was the first time a person had been slandered in a programme broadcast over the public airwaves, and based entirely upon a slander.) He was a lucky man, in that it was fairly easy to clear his name, simply because the TV company did not carry out the proper research. There is also the case of the wrongly accused man, Ian Bailey, in the murder of the French woman, Sophie Toscan du Plantier, in county Cork. He, also, will win out in the end, after suffering years of slander. However, the propagation of a slander by malicious people, does not, in general, give its victim a similar opportunity for retribution. Can there ever be a definate answer to the question, "Is there a toll to be paid, if I deliberty take someones character away?"

As for those people pretending to be religious for an hour every weekend! Why bother? They are quite happy to spread their lies, and their black hypocrisy goes un-noticed among themselves. Any village, big or small, where such unseemly events take place, have been failed by the local priest or minister in his, or her, appointed mission to spread the teaching of Christ.

The Yorkshire Ripper received better treatment than either of those two men, at least he had a fair trial. His accusers were out in the open, not hiding and accusing in secret. (Shades of the Salem wiches. If ever a remake of the old Spencer Tracy film "Bad Day At Blackrock" is contemplated, there would be no problem in providing a real-live cast of villagers.) In both cases the villagers conduct was completely reprehensible, and probably orchestrated by an inner Golden Circle; a collection of selfrighteous busybodies, full of their own importance, and the certainty that they are never wrong. Like Narcissus, they gaze lovingly at their reflected beauty on the shimmering surface of a nearby pool. But beneath the surface, they are the ugly inhabitant's of the Village of the Whispering Window's.


"Believe nothing you hear,
and only half what you see".

An old proverb.