Making Your Own Hope

In uncertain times, it’s hard to maintain a sense of hope and positivity for yourself and those around you. Hope comes from within yourself, even when it seems impossible to continue on. “This current crisis is calling for the emergence of a bolder, braver and kinder humanity.”

The following is an excerpt from Hitching for Hope by Ruairí McKiernan. It has been adapted for the web.

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Listen to the following excerpt from the audiobook of Hitching for Hope. It has been adapted for the web.

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I had barely stuck out my thumb for a lift on the scenic R335 to Lugh’s Mountain when a woman with warm, smiling eyes pulled up in a camper van and told me to hop in. ‘I used to hitch years ago,’ she reminisced, beaming with excitement after hearing what I was up to. ‘I went all over the place and had the best of times. People can be a bit brainwashed these days,’ she remarked with a sudden shift in tone. ‘We’ve been sold a lie about how to live and how to behave. It’s all about playing it safe, hiding in your own little corner.’ I recalled my own internal debate before embarking on this journey, the pull to stay in my job simply because it seemed reckless to do something different.

‘It’s all nonsense,’ she asserted in a strong midlands accent. ‘It’s a myth. Heaven isn’t up there in the sky waiting for you when you die. It’s here, right now – this is it. Heaven is right here on Earth, we’re living it, but we’re doing a damn fine job of turning it into hell.’

We travelled along the coastal road, the view of Croagh Patrick emerging to my left as fishing boats and kayaks moved gently through the clear blue waters of Clew Bay to my right.

‘Your trip is about hope?’ she asked. ‘If you ask me, hope is something you have to find in yourself, in your own heart, your own mind.’

The story she told me next put this idea into sobering context. ‘Years ago,’ she began, ‘when I was young, my brother was killed in a hit-and-run by men on their way home from the pub. I learned later that someone witnessed men leaving the scene. She knew who they were. They were powerful figures in the area, and she told my parents. They were in shock and couldn’t take it all in. When they did start asking questions, it was clear there was a cover-up, and that it was a battle they probably couldn’t win. I was too young to know anything about it, and my parents were too grief-stricken to take on powerful people and institutions. They had no power or influence and had to find a way to cope. The truth has been buried in silence ever since.’

I was flabbergasted – although perhaps I shouldn’t have been. There has been no shortage of revelations concerning corruption and abuses of power in Irish society. Charities, churches, businesses, the health system, sports associations, media, policing, politics – there are almost no sections of society that have been left unscathed. This woman’s story, as shocking as it was, was not entirely out of context with some of the scandals that have emerged in recent years. In all of these, there prevailed a common theme of corruption, cover-ups and the silencing of those who aspired to shine a light. It was no wonder that a new wave of courageous whistleblowers and truth-tellers was starting to emerge.

Arriving at the foot of the Reek, the woman left me with some parting words: ‘It’s not easy, but I’m having to live with all of this and try to find a way of making sense of the world. It’s hard living with a sense of injustice, and it has taken a huge toll on my family. I’ve realised that I can’t carry all that. I deserve to be happy, and I’m focused on that. So you want my views on hope? Don’t rely on the world to give you hope. We have to make hope from the raw materials we are given, as rough as they might be.’

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