Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Among the many intelligent features of Movable Type, the content management system that powers this and thousands of other blogs, is the one that allows you to create a list of categories — sex, drugs, rock n' roll, for example — and then assign these categories to each of your postings. From a maintenance standpoint, this is a nifty idea as it allows you to keep track of your entries, and it can also be used to add a categorization structure to the archives.

Last night, while scrolling through the hundreds of entries I've posted here since 1 May last year, I noticed that some 60 percent of them are labelled with the category "The war", which includes topics such as 11 September, Iraq and Ameriphobia. When I started Rainy Day I imagined that I'd spend most of the time writing about the things that inspire me: music, books, Rome, wine, the internet, Liam O' Flynn's piping, Donegal fiddling, and so on. But no, I keep coming back to "The war". I suppose it's a reflection of what's in the news and what many people I know talk about.

So, when will this "war" end and when will I get back to blogging about more joyful matters? Not for a long time, I fear. In fact, we may be entering a phase reminiscent of times past when war was the norm and peace was a rare interlude. This sounds unduly morose, I know, but a look at the history books attests that it's based on realism. Take, for instance, the Thirty Years' War, a term so extraordinary as to almost defy comprehension. But, although we must go back 400 years to that particular bloodletting, not much about human nature has changed since then. Indeed, although our wars are shorter now, the horrors of the 20th century suggest that we've become more barbaric.

The Thirty Years' War, by the way, was a series of conflicts lasting from 1618 to 1648, involving most of the countries of western Europe, and fought mainly in Germany. It ended with the Peace of Westphalia, signed in M? on 24 October 1648, which fundamentally influenced the subsequent history of Europe. As well as establishing Switzerland and the Dutch Republic (the Netherlands) as independent states, the treaty seriously weakened the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs, ensured the emergence of France as the continent's dominant power and disastrously impeded the development of Germany. The economic, social and cultural consequences of the war were enormous. Estimates suggest that the total population of Germany fell by at least 20 per cent; some regions suffered a loss of over 50 per cent.

So how can we avoid another Thirty Years' War? Well, let's start by accepting that our desire for peace must be accompanied by the will to confront the Chavezes, the Mugabes, the Husseins and the Kim Jong Ils of this world. Anything else is delusion.

Diarist of the day: Albert Camus, 19 March 1941

"Every year, the young girls come into flower on the beaches. They have only one season. The next year, they are replaced by other flower-like faces which, the previous season, still belonged to little girls. For the man who looks at them, they are yearly waves whose weight and splendour break into foam over the yellow beach."