Left discrimination is not right

My brother Sean claims that he has been discriminated against for all of his life. We all passed off his moaning as just normal Comaskey contrariness, but on taking a closer look at his grievance this column deduces that he does have a case after all.Sean"s plight is that, like 10 per cent of the population, he was born a cithóg (left-handed) in a mainly right-handed world. His problems started in national school, where Mrs McCormack 'encouraged' him to write with his right hand - courtesy of the cane! Since leaving school, no employer has ever handed my left-handed brother anything other than a right-handed tool to do any job. Every switch, lever or control panel he encounters throughout his lifetime is designed to be worked by the right hand. Sean rhymes off all the hazards associated with being a cithóg - right down to trying to open the brass buttons on the right-handed fork of his Levi jeans with his left hand!! I often liven up the debate by informing Sean that Queen Victoria and several English kings were left-handed; which always results in a torrent of expletives being showered down on the entire British monarchy!I have learned that there is much more to being left or right-handed than just the hand you use. The way our brains are organised means that the left and right sides each have different functions. The left side controls speech, language, writing, mathematics. Logic, science etc (this column would be lost without that word 'etc'!) while the right side controls things like music, art, creativity, perception, emotions and most would say, genius. Therefore brain to hand coordination is different in left and right handed people.Now the question: Is a cithóg a lesser person for being left-handed? Is the right hand more important? If not, why are we told that if we behave ourselves we will get to 'sit on the right hand of God'? Is there not a parable where the good sheep are set on Christ"s right hand and the lowly goats on the left? Those on the right inherit the kingdom of God while those on the left depart into everlasting fire. Poor Sean! For thousands of years, the Devil has been associated with the left hand in various ways and is normally portrayed in pictures as being left-handed. Evil spirits were said to lurk over the left shoulder: If salt were spilled - which was a valuable commodity in Roman times, bad luck could be avoided by throwing some of the spilled salt over the left shoulder to placate the Devil. Wedding rings were first worn on the third finger of the left hand by Greeks and Romans to fend off evil associated with the left hand. Once upon a time the right hand often symbolised "male" and the left was "female" …… as this column quickly moves on! When Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for being a witch in 1431, she was inaccurately depicted as being left-handed to make her seem evil.But there are two sides to every story and before our cithóg brothers commence stabbing themselves on the wrong side of their chest - all is not darkness out there. Doctor Alan Scarleman at the St. Lawrence University, New York, has gathered evidence to show that 'Lefties' tend to be more intelligent and eloquent than right-handers and better at solving problems.Left-handers seem to have an advantage in many areas of sport. For example; a left- handed boxer - known as a 'southpaw' is generally perceived as having some advantage. A lot of champion fencers are left handed and there have been numerous outstanding left handed tennis, squash, badminton and table-tennis champions. Part of this is almost certainly linked to the fact that the right side of the brain that controls spatial awareness is linked directly to the dominant left hand. According to neurologists, left-handed people adjust more readily to seeing underwater and many of the greatest swimmers of all time, including Mark Spitz, are left handed.Left-handed greatness is not confined to sport though. Some of the world"s greatest leaders were cithógs, including Lord Nelson - which was just as well, as I seem to recall that he lost his right arm in some pitch invasion or other! Nelson"s great adversary, Napoleon Bonaparte was also a southpaw. Julies Caesar, Alexander the Great, J.F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill were also 'lefties'.Now aren"t things looking better for our left-handed brothers and especially for our former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who is also a cithóg? Oh but I almost forgot; Billy the Kid also conducted his affairs with his trusted left hand!Many superstitions pertaining to the left hand remain with us to this day: Passing or pouring wine with the left hand leads to bad luck and a left-handed toast is tantamount to a curse on the victim. Tailors always sew on the right sleeve first on a jacket or it will bring bad luck to do the left one first. If you hear the sound of the cuckoo from the right it will be a lucky year - so of course if the sound comes from the left it"s unlucky. If your right eye twitches you will see a friend, if it"s your left eye you"ll meet an enemy. I don"t know if it"s superstition or for some other reason, but if you are left-handed in Las Vegas, you will not land any job as a card- dealer.There is another category which must get a mention in any article on left versus right; like it says in that beer ad; 'it doesn"t have to be A or B, there"s always C.' The C of this debate is the lucky ambidextrous ones who can use left or right hand with equal facility. This has to be a great advantage and I remember squash players such as Anne Doyle and Dick Whelehan who kept changing the raquet from one hand to the other during a rally. I wonder which hand of God will they sit on?!!Don"t ForgetThere are too many people in too many cars in too much of a hurry going too many directions to get nowhere for nothing