– Life along the Slaney

The inquest into the death of Harry Hunter from Teresa’s Court, Knockgreany, Coolgreany took place on Monday.

Harry was last seen on December 29, 2009 but wasn’t found until January 8. His body had lain in the front garden of his house covered in snow for up to 11 days. At the time of the tragic incident, a couple of newspaper reports questioned how someone could have gone unnoticed in his front garden without any of his neighbours spotting him.

There was a sense that we as a community had become so uncaring and so selfish that we no longer cared for those living around us.

Harry Hunter was known to his neighbours in Teresa’s Court and the people of Coolgreany for up to 30 years and they cared for him. Many of them called in to see if he was ok in the intervening period but because of a heavy fall of snow and a large bush that was obstructing him from view, his body went undiscovered.

The tragic death of Harry Hunter could easily be given as an example of how our society has become uncaring and concerned only with ourselves and our immediate family. This however is not the case.

In communities like Coolgreany and all around Wexford and Ireland the sense of community is still as strong as ever. People look out for each other and care for one another. Around this time, the sense of community was never more in evidence.

As the snow fell and the roads iced over, people forgot about themselves in order to make sure the elderly and the infirmed were ok. People risked their own safety to bring food and fuel to those who could not leave their own homes.

Communities rallied together to clear laneways, grit roads and generally do what Wexford County Council could not do. While it should not take a crisis like that to bring a community together, it is in times like these that we see the true nature of people.

In the past decade there is no question that the erection of super-sized housing estates have lead to the isolation of people and the loss of community interaction, at heart we are still a society that cares about the welfare of others.

Unfortunately for many years we forgot about our civic duty and pursued material wealth at the cost of strong communities and society interaction. How many people lived in vast, bland housing estate and did not know one of their neighbours by name?

However with the economic crisis and the big freeze in January we seem to have all woken up to what is important in life. We seem to be returning to a more community-based society where people actually talk to their neighbours and have a vested interest in their communities.

Even more recently the eruption of the volcano in Iceland once again forced people to help one another out. Lifts from far-flung destinations were shared and a shared experience brought the best out of everyone it seemed.

It is sad that a lot of people have had to lose their jobs in order to realise this and hopefully if or when the economy returns to some semblance of normality, we will not forget the lessons we have learned.