Letters from Ireland III

Irland steckt in einer tiefen Krise. Nicht nur wirtschaftlich geht es bergab, auch politisch steht das Land an der Abbruchkante. Der seit vielen Jahren in Nordrhein-Westfalen lebende Ire Hugh Murphy reist in seine Heimat zurück und schreibt über das, was er sieht. Hier ist der dritte Brief unseres Gastautors.

„Hello,

„It’s not my money they’re talking about,“ said the chubby man, with half his pint drunk, at the curve of the bar. The full sum of the bail out, 85 billions euros, had just come up on the screen behind the bar.
„That’s what you think,“ says another pint man further along the bar, „wait till you see the budget next week. They’ll have their hands in both your pockets then.“
„For all the good that’ll do them. I’ve been skinnt since I lost me job last May. Give us a pint, Dorris!“ and with that he drained his glass in one go.
„There’s nothing we can do about it, says Dorris as the tawny liquid fills up a new glass, „so I ignore it altogether,“ there are volumes of annoyance in the way she says it.

There’s no way anyone in Europe can understand how the Irish don’t react to the present crisis. Every country has its own way of putting the head in the sand when the facts of life become too painful to face right now. The Greeks riot, the Italians stay at home, the French go on a nation wide strike so that everybody can stay in bed in the morning after they reach sixty. The Irish become an ingrown toe nail. They turn on their politicians and parties and pundits and they dissect them savagely, not that they hope to find and relief for their pain by doing so. The parties in power now – Fianna Fáil et al, caused the disaster and are therefore rotten. The opposition parties – Fine Gael et al, are just as useless. It’s another side of Joyce’s old sow but there’s rarely any sign of Joyce’s courage to try to do something about it. A new government will be elected in the coming weeks or months but they are already known to be useless.

Eventually someone will say, „we could be an awful lot worse off. We are not at war. We do not have tsunamis, famine or earthquakes to deal with and, as those of us who have been through earlier hard times know. We will ride it out.“ (‚Lucinda O’Sullivan, Sunday Independent.) Even the notorious rain is found to be a „psychologically soothing presence in our lives,“ (Marie Murray, ditto)

With such optimism within daily reach who cares if the bailout works or not! Hugh Murphy“

Letters from Ireland I

Letters from Ireland II