An Irishman's Diary

MAD AS the leaders of the French Revolution were, in many respects, they at least had a point in decreeing that the year should begin and end in mid-September.

In fact, under their partially decimalised and wholly secular calendar, which abolished Sundays (and weeks) in favour of having 12 30-day months comprising three 10-day “decades” each, we would currently be in something of a hiatus.

Revolutionary Year 218 would have ended on Wednesday last – Fructidor 30th (Month of Fruits) – while Year 219 would not start until next Tuesday: Vendemiaire 1st (Month of Harvest), the autumn equinox.

The five left-over days — six in a leap-year — were initially known as the “Sans-Culottides”, in honour of the long-trousered masses who had risen against the old order with its fashionably knee-cut breeches.

Each was a state holiday dedicated to a particular virtue: work, talent, honour, etc. There was also a day dedicated to “opinion”, when you were encouraged to criticise or even openly mock official policy. The sixth day, every four years, celebrated the revolution itself. But ironically it was the shortage of holidays, and the enduring popularity of the concept of Sunday as a day of rest, that – among other reasons – ensured the calendar would be short-lived.

In 21st-century Ireland, no organisation is so much in tune with French revolutionary spirit as the GAA, whose year climaxes this weekend with that great annual fete: All-Ireland Football Final Sunday.

This year’s game is particularly apt, involving as it does a rebel attempt to overthrow a kingdom. And as usual, the event is expected to be followed by a ceremonial re-enactment of the storming of the Bastille (here represented by the Croke Park playing surface).

Which in turn will be followed by the GAA’s self-mocking tribute to the people’s will: the announcement of “Plan B in Operation.” Then, with the Sam Maguire’s residency decided for another year, all the other counties will start dreaming and planning anew for next September.

But you don’t have to be a revolutionary or a GAA fan to think that a new year is now upon us. This will already be obvious to school children everywhere as they encounter new classrooms, new teachers, new books. It will be clear to college students too, many of whom are finding new places to live. And it will be most obvious to parents of either group, as they search for new or second jobs to pay the expenses involved.

Of course it’s not just the resumption of schools and colleges that mark the end of the lazy, aimless days of summer. The Dáil is returning from its long exile. The courts are back too. Political parties are all holding think-ins and talk-outs.

And as a consequence, newspapers are emerging from the doldrums of July and August and gathering wind in their sails again as they sweep southwards through the horse latitudes of autumn, their masts (and metaphors – Diary Ed) creaking from the renewed strain of events.

As often seems to happen, the weather has weighed in with the sense of a new start that this time of year brings. The broken promises of a long, hot summer have already been sold off, at a minimum 30 per cent discount. And early autumn has compensated for its shortening evenings with a long succession of bright, crisp days: “the apple-ripe September mornings” and “mist-chill fields” that so enraptured Patrick Kavanagh.

The falling leaves are thus still dry enough for the leaf-blower. Indeed, in the grounds of my next-door neighbour in Dublin – the 325-year-old Royal Hospital Kilmainham, now home to the Irish Museum of Modern Art – the leaf-police have been busy since last week, blowing away the old year while keeping driveways clear. Elsewhere in the grounds, on the high wall around the formal gardens, the Virginia creeper is gearing up for its annual autumn exhibition. This will mark the fall of the year just as spectacularly – and as fleetingly – as the cherry blossoms (not that we have many of those in my part of town) marked its rise.

But even the long, dark nights that lie ahead of us are, for the moment, full of promise and excitement. Because the leaves now being shed by trees are counterbalanced by other leaves: the paper ones arriving through our letterboxes, advertising night classes and gym memberships, and the like; and the metaphorical variety we plan to turn, perhaps with the help of such activities, in the coming months.

That old hardy annual – the guide to evening classes – is in full bloom on the counters of every bookstore and newsagents: promising new languages, new skills, perhaps even new love affairs, begun under the camouflage of adult education.

Museums and galleries, Imma included, have tapped into this frenzy for learning and self-improvement that afflicts us at this time of year. Hence Culture Night, which will again see hundreds of institutions all over Ireland staying open late this day next week.

Of course, the enthusiasm won’t last. No more than the New Year resolutions we make in January, the new leaves we turn in September don’t necessarily stay turned. The renewed gym attendances lapse. The night classes fail for lack of homework. That promise to go running every evening is no match for the plummeting temperatures and the lure of The Wire: Season Three on boxset (despite that idiot in The Irish Times giving away the plot last week).

The optimism of early autumn dies gradually with the evening light, until grim November quenches it completely and leaves us vulnerable to the charms of a prematurely declared Christmas.

As the French revolutionaries found out (if they lived long enough), old habits are hard to change. So it proved with their brave new calendar, which officially lasted until 1805 – a lot longer than Danton and Robespierre, admittedly – but was in effect quietly abandoned sometime around 1798, in Revolutionary Year Six.

fmcnally@irishtimes.com