In the last few days a priest at a Mass in the St. Joseph’s Redemptorist Church in town when speaking about hell, referred to the fact that the unfortunate people cramming the approaches to Kabul airport in an effort to escape that country were experiencing a living hell.
e was right for we have all seen the heartbreaking pictures nightly on TV of families carrying children in their arms in horrendous heat waiting for days to try and get a flight out of the country.
It is impossible not to be moved by the pictures we see, and unquestionably if we were asked if we would admit more than our allocated share of these people as refugees into this country we would agree without any hesitation.
However when the awful suffering that we see round the airport is no longer screened in vivid pictures on our TV’s nightly would we be as willing to take in extra refugees and settle them in our midst.
Dundalk, as we know, has, like many towns in Ireland, settled it’s fair share of refugees and emigrants from many countries in recent years, but the experience of those people has not always been welcoming.
In some ways this has been understandable for the cultural change that the town has experienced in the last 20 years has been a difficult process for many elderly, some of whom can vividly recall when it was difficult to meet a resident of the town that was not born in Ireland.
The influx of people from outside of Ireland into Dundalk has also placed a great strain on the resources in terms of manpower and funds on a number of local charitable organisations who respond to those in need, one being the St. Vincent de Paul, but they have undertaken this work on our behalf with a willing heart and a adherence to their policy of not discriminating against any person in need irrespective of creed or colour.
In the coming months when undoubtedly Dundalk will be asked to settle some of the people who have fled Afghanistan let us remember the hell that they have escaped and try and make it easier for them to settle in a land far from their birth with a culture and a language that will be difficult to learn.
