IT ISN'T all that long ago that the tenor of life in rural Ireland was placid and undisturbed. Country people took it for granted that there were no serious threats to their contented sense of personal security. It had been like that for such a long time that it was hard to conceive of it changing for the worse, no matter what malign forces might be at work in the big bad distant world.
In the country mind, the big bad world often took the menacing shape of the city with a mugger or rapist lurking in every second doorway. The feeling among country people was that they could sleep safely in their beds and even leave the front door on the latch without fear of an unwelcome interloper. The sense of trust was pervasive, with the comforting thought that the visitor coming through the unlocked door was not bent on badness but probably a neighbour wondering about your welfare.
Even the city, though it might be considered the criminal's natural habitat, had its golden age of innocence. Parts of Dublin are now unsafe to wander through after dark but it wasn't always so.
I can remember, and I'm sure others of my age can too, walking through Dublin late at night without being accosted. I recall walking a girl home to Glasnevin in the 1950s at two in the morning, and traversing a placid city without once having to look over my shoulder.
All is changed now, not only in the city but in the country too. The grisly demons of crime that once we watched in safe fascination on our cinema and television screens are loose and stalk the land. It isn't necessarily engendering palpable, paralysing tear but it has produced an unnerving sense of angst that is now enveloping all our communities, whether they are on lonely country boreens or in bustling urban streets.
Whether you live in Drumcondra or Belmullet, you can no longer leave your door on the latch and even when it is locked and bolted, there is the possibility that deadly and dangerous people will force their way inside. When you go out, particularly at night and especially if you are a woman, you had better heed exactly where you are going and bring a friend.
I've heard visitors to this country gasp in amazement at the fact that often young girls on their own can be seen walking along the roads hitching a lift. The visitors, unused to such a sight in their town countries, see it as an indication of what a sale country Ireland must be. And it was, one time. But after the terrible events of recent months we're not likely to see too many lone female hitchhikers on Irish roads in the future, and that will be a depressing reminder of how our society has been diminished, probably irretrievably.
For whatever reason, serious criminal activity has now broken away from the urban milieu and is now growing even in the remotest parts of the countryside. Ireland being such a small country, perhaps this was to be expected. The modern social ills in which the current wave of crime is thought to be rooted are proliferating in rural areas as flourishing much as they have in the cities. Drugs are on the increase even in the smaller towns and if the procurement of drugs is really a motive for violent robbery in the city, no one should be surprised that the same should hold true of country areas.
While drugs probably do play a part in the current crime scenario, I believe they are not the only or even the main reason for what is happening. I'm inclined to agree with the theory of a garda friend who spent some time on Border duty. He's convinced that the bloodshed and killing that have been rife in Northern Ireland for more than two decades have inured people North and South to violence.
As he sees it, violent death has woven itself into the fabric of life in the whole island to such a degree that we have become accepting of it. If this is true, then nobody should be surprised when criminals, who in the past might stop short of murder, will now not hesitate to kill to achieve their ends. Worse, some of them may now be ready to kill for no reason at all.
