We are a talkative nation. Put any two Irish people together and we will talk. We will talk in a bus queue, after mass, in the pub, on the street, in our homes and in our offices. And we are not behind in our opinions. We can be quite forceful in our views. And we are also very good about giving out when things are not right. Talk to Joe on RTE radio is one of our longest running programmes and it is amazing the number of topics we can give out about. And when we give out, we often say that somebody should do something about that. Somebody should do something.
Well, I decided to be that somebody. It wasn’t that I considered myself better than anyone else at doing something. It wasn’t that I felt I was any more qualified to be that somebody. It wasn’t even that I thought I had a God-given right to be that somebody – I just felt that I had to be the change I wanted to see. So I had to be that somebody.
Of course, somebody is also your mother, your sister, your daughter, your wife. Somebody is your friend, your first date, your last date, your golf partner. Somebody is the girl next door, is Mrs Murphy down the street, is the woman in the shop, is the woman hanging out the washing. Somebody is the attendant in the petrol station, the bus driver, the chap smoking on the corner, the woman pushing her child in her pram. Somebody is also you.
Even as I become that somebody, I would love if you could become somebody too. When I stand for election, I would love if somebody would vote for me, somebody just like you, in fact, it is you!
