Operation Fanacht

 Operation Fanacht;

The Gardai will be 'manning' (is that even a word any more?) several hundred checkpoints all across the country over the next three weeks, to ensure that we, the Irish people, remain close to home, (we're on an island lads, ffs), during the newly imposed Level 3 Covid19 Lockdown.
Operation Fanacht will hopefully finish on the 27th of October, a couple days before Halloween, when we will not allow our children go 'trick or treating', or apple-dunking, or other spit-swapping activities, for obvious reasons, though mask-wearing will be allowed, even encouraged.
Operation 'Fanacht' is the cutesy code-name for the enforced restricted movement of people around the country and within their own home-districts.

'Fanacht' roughly translated from the gaelic, means 'Wait', or 'Stay', in Irish, so it is an appropriate word for the mobility restrictions inherent in the Level 3 Lockdown, but as a stand-alone word, it is ineffective. 

Perhaps they ought, more properly have called it Operation 'Fanacht sa bhaile' or 'Stay at Home'. giving us clearer instruction?
Pronounced badly, by non-Irish speakers or careless announcers, 'Fanacht' can sound like, and be easily confused with another Irish word, 'Fánach'.
Now in my humble opinion, 'Fánach' would have been a far better code-name for the current restrictions. Fánach means 'wandering, straying, or vagrant'.
Given our history of emigration and our penchant for hopping into our cars, (or these days, mounting our bicycles or electric scooters) for the slightest reason, going to a third-cousins communion, or a distant friend's neighbor's funeral, or a sale in Harvey Normans in any town other than the one we live in, well, 'Fánach' would have been a far more appropriate codeword.
Most of us were first introduced to the word 'Fánach' in the poem we learned in primary school, 'An Spailpín Fánach', a poem that recounted the misery of being a paid labourer on the big farms and how much better life could have been had he not gone off to fight for a foreign army, where he in turn learned that the hills faraway were not as green as he had hoped.
Truth is we are an island nation and our global peregrination defines us far better than we can know.
'Fánach' also means aimless, purposeless, vain, and futile. Curiously that is the mood of many people in Ireland today under lockdown. Many of us have lost our way, lost our can do attitude, our 'joi de vivre', our reasons to be cheerful, part II.
'Fánach' also means random, or haphazard, and surely that is the definition of how we are currently being governed, in an unplanned, knee-jerk manner, with decisions being foisted on un without proper fore-thought, planning or empirical proof.
'Fánach' also means occasional, rare, or seldom, which I believe is the general response to the Covid 19 restrictions imposed on us this past six months, only occasionally, rarely or seldom have we disobeyed the rules, the morally and socially imposed mores of keeping ourselves safe and uninfected by this infectious virus, and signs by, very, very few of us have 'caught' the virus, only 1% or so of our population have been exposed to the disease, despite our 'lax' laws, mostly unarmed police, and happy-go-lucky younger folk, whose lives have been completely overwhelmed by the panic surrounding this pandemic.
'Fánach' also means sparse or little, which sometimes reflects the quality of our leadership these days, with very few people, politicians, business leaders, medics having the courage to stand up and lead by example, and I'm not even going to refer to the infamous game of golf in Connemara.
Finally, 'Fánach' also means trivial, insignificant, words that none of us use when speaking of this killer virus. We all need to work together, doing everything we used to do, but carefully, and in moderation, if we are to successfully emerge from this global pandemic and resurrect our communities, our vibrant towns and cities, protect our older generations while allowing our younger generations to live and thrive, and also, to safely reopen Ireland for tourism and safeguard the jobs and futures of the huge percentage of our population that rely on the hospitality and related industries.
Yes, its a pity they called it 'Operation Fanacht' or 'Operation Stall the ball', when we could have used an Irish word that isn't mono-theistic and could be so much more 'hopeful'!
Stay Safe.
Isn't the Irish language amazing!

Here is the first part of the poem, in the original Irish, then in English (my translation). The poet by the way is not known, or at least as far as I know, he is unknown.
'Go deo seo aris ni rachad go Caiseal.
Ag diol na ag reic mo shlainte
Na ar mhargadh na saoire im shui cois balla
Im’scaoinse ar leataoibh sraide
Bodairi na tire ag tiocht ar a gcapall
Da fhiafrai an bhfuilim hiralta
O! teanam chun siuil, ta an cursa fada
Seo ar siul an Spailpin Fanach.'
Translation
'Never, ever again will I go to Cashel,
Selling life and health for nought,
Nor to the hiring-fair, me sitting by the wall,
nonchalantly lazing by the roadside,
Well-fed country-farmers strutting on their horses,
deigning to ask me if I'd been hired,
"No, c'mon so, let’s go, the road is long"
And off with him, the Spailpín Fánach.'
and finally;
Random photo of Morris Minor at Achill, taken by Sean Calvey, included for no good reason. 

Brian Nolan 7/10/2020