His weeping brought stares from the journalists - but sympathy from his fellow travellers. They needed to be there to see for themselves what was not comprehensible - that their wives, husbands, children, grandchildren had been murdered and it was unlikely their bodies would ever be returned to their grieving families. It hadn't been that long since I had lost someone dear to me. But at least I had kissed goodbye and attended the burial rites. The Irish are no strangers to tragedy.
Irish history is littered with monumental events that symbolically live in the collective soul.
But Ireland is also a nation of seagoing people. And as anyone in Newfoundland, or B.C., or the Arctic can tell you, sometimes those who take to sea don't come back. There isn't a city, or town, or village on the coast of Ireland that hasn't grieved for sons and fathers that didn't return. I suspect that's why the people of Cork never turned their backs on those families of the Air India victims that began trickling into their community. They came by ones and twos.