How to strike the right note with our ancestors?
JUST in case we thought we could dash off the census return as in any old year, merrily inflating our fondness for the cúpla focail and our religious fervour, the cunning chaps at the CSO have come up with a wheeze designed to have us burning the midnight oil on census night.
Yes, you’ve guessed it – the time capsule, the dedicated blank space at the end of the form which invites us to leave a message for future generations.
What will we tell them about ourselves, our descendants, not to mention the armies of nosey parkers and amateur genealogists who in a hundred years will be at liberty to read our offerings, to scour them for hints about our lives and collate them into a snapshot of the conscience and character of our time?
It’s often said that in historical terms, a century is just a blink of an eye, but the census returns of 1901 and 1911 show how the arc of change fundamentally altered this country in that time frame.
If asked to leave a time capsule message for posterity, that agrarian nation of 1901, of large households, many of them poorly educated and semi-literate would in all likelihood have simply invoked the name of their favourite saint or the Sacred Heart and pleaded for their blessings to rain down upon the reader.
ADECADE later, the struggle for independence and the bitter Civil War rivalries which turned brother upon sister might get a painful mention in a time capsule, while into the 1950s family heartbreak at the rising tide of emigration would move centre stage, only relieved by the triumphs of the county team at Croke Park or an astonishing show of athleticism by Paddy Joe at the fair day races.
In the time capsules created on April 3, these motifs may be supplanted by new worries about the environment, Covid, the war in Ukraine and the arrival of thousands of desperate refugees to our shores.
This being the age of individualism, it’s unlikely that our time capsules will be devoted to the toll of devastating public events on private lives.
Instead, they will brim with personal stories about family life, of sparking displays of wit and creativity, or humblebragging about the new utility room and kitchen island and teem with lists of hobbies and interests, diagrams of family trees and fervent hopes for the future.
The bigger picture of a society in flux, of both successes and failures, will be revealed in questions about household size showing how even in middle-income households, the housing crisis has led to multi-generational living and a boomerang generation.
Questions about gender will indicate how identity politics has become the new fashion, taking over from economic battles, while data about education and salaries will highlight the limits of social mobility.
What would be of more interest to us would be the reaction of future generations to the carefully crafted words contained in our time capsules.
WILL the men and women of 2122 be shocked at our selfabsorption and vanity, our ability to let our private lives dwarf world crises like the war in the Ukraine or an imminent global catastrophe? Or will they delight in this treasure trove of family lore and see it as the scaffolding of their personal identity? It depends on how the world turns in the decades to come. Who knows, if life expectancy continues to increase at the rate shown in the last few census returns, some of us might be around to see it.