An Editor's thoughts of the moment

This is just for the record, and to remind myself how useful it is to have two working hands. Especially if you make your living by writing.

For the last two days I haven't had that ability. An operation on Monday to deal with a couple of fingers on my right hand which had become curled-in due to Dupuytren's Contracture has left me temporarily a southpaw, and I'm writing this with my left hand. It's amazing how, in such a situation, a writer's thoughts run far ahead of his ability to get them down.

I can put up with it for now, but -- because somebody once said to me 'your fingers talk' -- I'd not find it easy to carry on like this on a permanent basis.

Even if I had to, though, wouldn't I be lucky? I'd have my mind, and at least one hand. I think of Christy Brown, whose books I read which were famously written with the toes of his left foot. And physicist Stephen Hawking, with a voice synthesiser, has given us some extraordinary essays on what he believes makes the world tick.

So whatever temporary difficulty I might be experiencing tonight as I write this at the counter in Bardon's pub is small enough. Especially as I know that it IS temporary. And also because I know I'll never write anything as important as those two I mentioned.

But, since I first started typing out articles during the mid-seventies, on a portable Brother typewriter, in the public bar of the Hideout after I had seen customers and staff gone home, the ability to get down in print my thoughts and observations has been such an important part of my life. And, I hope, it has had some importance to those who have read or listened to the several millions of words I've written since those after hours type-scribbles.

'Important' is not the right word here. That what I wrote might have informed or entertained, or both, is really what matters.

Just now, I'm so grateful for the simple technology of my Alphasmart Dana keyboard, my sight so that I can see what I'm trying to say, and the the ability to string these few words together.

Yesterday, being so slightly incapacitated, I had the opportunity to sit by the fire at home, and watch and listen while a man tried to bring hope back to a sorely troubled country, and also, by doing so, to a similarly troubled world.

Over the course of the long inauguration of President Barack Obama in the United States, I worked with my left hand to help meet a couple of writing deadlines.

And after listening to him say the kind of words which our own small nation badly needs to hear from our own leaders, I felt uplifted. I emailed friends in the US that, this time, they seemed to have 'elected the right man'.

When I get my right hand back next week -- and, because of the way I type, I only need one finger of it to be back to full speed -- it is the kind of message I'm going to push forward in my own community, where I am lucky to represent the fourth generation of my family in this place.

Because I can. And, even if our leaders are, apparently, still confused ... because WE, as the people who make up our Irish nation, can.

Join me. And all the other people in Kilcullen who wish to carry on a tradition of a village, becoming a town, where the spirit called for by Barack Obama has existed for as long as I can remember.

Let's take to our hearts the core of the new US President's tone on Tuesday, and roll up our sleeves and get on with getting out of our own particular mess.

Brian Byrne.