What Easter means to West Cork

Easter is a festival that means different things to different people in West Cork. MARY McCARTHY asked three local people how they recall and celebrate this time of year

MOLLY O'MAHONY – SINGER-SONGWRITER, BALLYDEHOB

Molly's Easter eggs fell prey to a sugar thief!

I THINK Easter means spring-time and chocolate. I used to take Lent very seriously as a child. Weeks of depriving my particularly virulent sweet tooth for torturous weeks (with a permissible lapse at Paddy’s Day, obviously), until that blessed Easter morning rolled around when I could lean into an unbounded, guilt-free, all-day choc-binge. I was into delayed gratification and martyrdom back then. It must have been my Catholic primary school education.

There was always an Easter bunny hunt in the morning, which I took as seriously as my school exams, drawing a picture for my mum, or anything else of great import to the life of a nine-year- old. It was high stakes stuff, and no mantelpiece trinket or stairwell nook was left un-scoured until the last one of those tiny, shiny Lidl brand eggs was recovered, majority eaten, then stashed.

I would stash my remaining eggs for weeks, taking great pleasure in still having chocolate to eat long after all my siblings – their unsophisticated gobbling in glaring contrast with my dignified saving and savouring. But alas, every year, my carefully-hidden eggs would, inevitably, fall foul of the same dastardly sugar thief, enemy to child husbandry, and killer of chocolate dreams – my mother.

She would sniff ‘em out. I do not know how she did it, but she would find them. No matter how ingenious my hiding place, at a certain number of weeks past Easter on a full moon, when the sleep-deprived glucose cravings of a mother-to-small-children were at their fever pitch, and there was ne’er a biscuit in the house to save her, she would go after those eggs. She would hunt them down and she would feast on their sweet milk-chocolatey insides. Sometime thereafter, I would find the carnage, fall to my knees, and howl at the moon, bereft. Another year of dashed Easter dreams.

FR BERNARD COTTER – CO-PP CASTLEHAVEN AND MYROSS

Fr Bernard Cotter believes Easter can renew faith, for people in grief or for those whose hope has flagged.

I THINK Easter means remembering Fr Bob Harrison, who was a good friend of mine. His death at the age of 38 (from cancer) hit me hard. He was buried on a fresh spring morning outside Farran church, near Ovens, where he worked.

The following Easter Sunday, I visited his grave. It was a lovely experience, strangely. The grave was covered with flowers, and there, in the midst of them all, I saw a butterfly fluttering about, a real sign of life, I felt. A little research taught me how much a butterfly is an image of resurrection. This one-time caterpillar transforms into a new shape and form — while using all the body parts of its former self as a caterpillar. Its former caterpillar friends would not recognise the new reality — just as Jesus’ close associates did not know him when he was seen after his tomb was found empty. He was transformed.

A few years after Bob’s death, I lost my mother; her burial took place in Dunmanway on a cold January day. That next Easter I visited her grave, expecting a similar uplifting sight. There were flowers there, and butterflies, but I got no consolation from them. It seemed an empty experience (and, of course, I missed my mother).

But my imagination provided me with an explanation. A voice spoke, quoting what the angel had said on Easter day: ‘Why look among the dead for someone, who is alive!’

I was told that my mother was not here, she had risen, just as the angel had explained all those years ago to deflated disciples. No number of butterflies could give me the consolation that that realisation conveyed.

A bit of faith goes a long way. Easter can renew faith, for people in grief or for those whose hope has flagged. I hope this Easter renews you.

CECILIA SCHOLTE LUBBERINK – ARTIST AND OWNER OF LE CHÉILE ARTS, DUNMANWAY

Easter's a time of new ideas and new life, says Cecilia

I THINK Easter means a time for new ideas and new life. Easter, although not the same as it used to be, is always a quiet day. No matter how busy the world around me is, it is a reflective day. I listen to the birds singing and notice nature.

Being brought up Catholic in Ireland, it was instilled in me to think of Christ’s crucifixion on the cross.

The piercing of a sword in his side. Contemplating thoughts of death and endings, spirituality, and meanings, I reflect on this.

Easter morning and the magical resurrection that follows are about new life, new hope, and new beginnings. And of course, chocolate eggs and bunnies. Children run through gardens to find what the friendly rabbits have hidden for them.

At Easter, the days are longer. A fresh and beautiful light pours in through the large window of my art and craft shop. Hope and new ideas bloom into life. Spring sees me planning for the year ahead, setting goals, as well as deep cleaning the winter away with its cobwebs.

Within my artistic practice, I am inspired by spring more than any season. Buds that emerge from trees, daffodils that flower and fill the landscape, as well as snowdrops growing in delicate clumps in the spaces where I have been told fairies live. Birds gather their materials to build their nests in the old shed walls – each little cubby hole holding the potential of a new home and a new life.

At Easter, the world can take you in any new direction, you just need to get out and let it inspire you.