Trevor Laffan: A glimpse of a community vibe that Ireland seems to have lost

When I was a child in primary school, there were two things that signalled the start of the summer holidays for me.

One was totting up the roll book with our teacher, Mr John Walsh, and the other was the school sports day.

Mr Walsh was a lovely, quietly- spoken man who seemed to be blessed with endless patience. I can’t remember him ever losing the cool, even though I’m pretty sure we gave him plenty of reason to from time to time.

For the last few days of the school year, he would sit at the top of the classroom and call out bunches of numbers to us and we would add them up. I’m sure that wasn’t really necessary, but for us it was something different to do. It meant we didn’t get any homework either and summer was coming.

The other sign that the good times were upon us was the school sports day. That was held in what was known as The College Field.

Owned by the Christian Brothers, it was mainly used for football and hurling. Kicking the ball along the ground would invite a rebuke for playing a foreign game.

But for one day of the year, this field was turned into an Olympic stadium for children. Back then, it sat on the edge of town, almost in the countryside, but now it is home to College Manor, a large housing estate surrounded by modernisation.

The school sports day was a special treat, even for the less athletic guys like me. It was an opportunity to get out in the field and run around with friends and have fun.

Parents turned out in their droves to support the goings-on, mostly bored out of their tree, I would imagine.

The weather was always good, as far as I can remember, or maybe that’s just the rose-tinted glasses, but I can’t recall ever being wet or cold. We all ran in our bare feet too so we would surely have noticed.

It was on one of those days that I peaked as an athlete. I think I mentioned here before that I came third in the 100-yard dash and got an empty, brightly-coloured biscuit tin as a reward. That was the moment I figured there was no future for me in this sporting lark.

We weren’t the only ones having fun either. There were summer festivals taking place for the adults too.

The Cobh International Folk Dance Festival brought a sense of fun and colour to the streets, and there was the Ballymore Festival in the country, with all sorts of outdoor pursuits in the fields for the adults to participate in.

All harmless, innocent fun, but they brought people together and generated a sense of community, which is something that is missing when we need it most.

Every day we wake up to news of more Trump madness, the latest in wars and famines, social unrest, and misguided souls identifying as cats.

We could do with a bit of normality, and I found some recently during the Easter celebrations in the village of Deryneia. It’s on the eastern side of Cyprus and has a population of somewhere in the region of 6,000 people.

It has a central square with a church on one side and a bar/restaurant on another. There are traditional Cypriot houses surrounding the square and you get the impression that not much has changed there for a hundred years.

It was here that they organised an Easter celebration and I was struck by the simplicity of the occasion and the wonderful sense of community it created.

I parked some distance away and as I walked to the square I could hear the cheering. The wide street leading into it was lined on both sides with hundreds of locals.

A large group of younger people had taken a rooftop position to get a better view. They watched the tug-o-war, sack racing, musical chairs, and more taking place below.

The square itself had been filled with tables and chairs, and temporary shades had been set up to keep the sun off the attendees.

There could have been anything up to 900 people sitting there, and in one corner, a team of chefs cooked up sheftalia and mixed kebabs to feed everyone.

Musicians, story-tellers, singers, and poets entertained the audience who seemed to be having a great time as they clapped and sang along.

I have a dozen words of Greek and I didn’t recognise any of them in what I heard so I was kind of in the dark, but it was good fun.

A friend of mine for many years, Tassos Hadjilefteris, had sorted a long table for us. There were seven of us Irish and about 20 of his family all sitting together. At another table, I saw three elderly native ladies dressed in black taking a great interest in the proceedings, and I wondered what they were thinking.

What changes had they seen since their childhood? I suspect, in this particular square, there hadn’t been too many. They would be well used to this type of get-together because the Cypriots are very family-oriented. Families getting together in large groups is not unusual.

Every Sunday, you’ll find grandparents, parents and children in large numbers, dining in the local restaurants. That was very evident in Deryneia too.

Another thing that was noticeable, was the lack of alcohol on the tables. A temporary bar had been set up opposite the church but the most common drink on the tables, by a long way, was bottled water.

That’s another thing I have long admired about the Cypriots, they don’t need drink to have a good time, but they do know how to enjoy themselves.