Tag: Irish

Ireland through tests, first imposed, then predominantly self-inflicted through general negligence of handling our own affairs, saw the taming of the Celtic tiger and a period of an economic slump of the late 2000s-early 2010s that established itself as the bedrock for which a period of drastic economic policy that was planted under it years prior, in an attempt to generate as much stimulation as possible, the lowering of tax on businesses, the rise in attraction swelled and not just with business leaders, with leaders of the family too, the historic rise of economic growth in a the post-soviet union, European union, saw the torch economic aspirations in Europe burn as bright over Ireland as it ever had done, and in a economy creating more jobs than it had people to fill them, the turn of the eye to foreign talent grew ever fixed on the ever realising prospect that for the first time in the history of the state, it would see considerably more people come to these emerald shores than would turn the heads away from them and look elsewhere for their prospects. The 21st century in Ireland saw that influx of foreign nationals, for work, for education, for safety, for stability. And while the tiger couldn’t prowl forever, its cub did survive, the corporation tax lowered a year before even more Europeans could benefit from the right to free travel, which would yield the economic miracle rivalling the records, the Scandinavian standards, the strength of the tiger cub’s mother, but did not produce the same outcomes of her mother’s successes, down partially to the fact that there is little to be argued that no bigger roadblock has ground the economy more than surging to the very top of our European brethren, than the fact that the population of the state has not being maintained with the level of housing needed, Ireland is small, but it isn’t that small, used effectively, the average Irish person has more money in their pocket, wallet/purse, piggy bank, mattress, or bank account(or sacks of cash) than the average French person, the average German, the average Brit, how can this be? We’re above the European average in most socio-economic fields, and are ranked with the aforementioned three in nearly every major aspect; rate of poverty, homelessness, completion of secondary education, access to and completion of tertiary education, gender equality, addiction, and income inequality. But these are the standards for a developed 1st world, western, nation, I mean they are but think about that, over 1.6 million people are living in this country that were alive when Ireland was a third world nation, where they themselves and certainty family and friend of theirs, millions of Irish people in the 50 years since joining the EU, have moved, traveled across Europe. And with that, this state, these 4 provinces, these 26 counties, have enough geopolitical leverage with the world’s largest nations, a financial strategy that has shown itself more than just a simple tax haven, a state that as the late Brian Lenihan Jr, said,

“We have every right to be confident only if we have confidence in ourselves”

And we have done so, to such a successful degree, to say the average net income is higher here than former empires, states that ruled over not only us but hundreds of other nations, states that got where they are today based on the slave trade, colonisation, the mass exploitation of the third world for their own gain, and now at the present day, for the brief time that this second is…..that one right there, we can say, yes we have that, but we need to be better? but of course, Ireland, the historically tumultuous and slow-moving turtle, has passed out the hare, but there is no finish line in this race, you don’t win in economics, you don’t win in nation building, you keep stability, you don’t win, you achieve comfort, where you live by happiness, as something to abide by, not an outcome to achieve, you do it to create the ripples in the pond that come back to you, you don’t to it to become top of a happiness index. We have problems, as we did before, problems that we didn’t even know we had, and we have reconciled, we have sworn to create a better version of ourselves, built off the last one. To say “we must evolve” is not to say we must digress, become something alien, something that is indistinguishable from the state the founders of this country gave their lifework for, their lives for. The parts of us that we all agree upon that we hold to be us, that hold us apart, isn’t the money in our pocket or the friends around an ambassador table, it’s what we list, the virtues, and the negatives that make us who we are, there is no light without dark, no dawn without dusk, no peace without hate, we just as many of our friends across the waters around the world hold similar virtues, the same negatives as we hold, we are not a brotherhood of man seeking all, we a group of people that predominantly value justice, value introspection, value sympathy. The Ireland I know is an Ireland with a bruise forever on its cheek, but a heart to melt you, a story to lift you, and an unshakable look in its eye to know the past is done, it won’t be forgotten, because only in remembering our past, a remembrance in the whole, can we be assured of the future, a future with the knowledge that missteps will unfold, tears will be shed, fists will be clenched and glass will be shattered, but we have not made it this far, we have not seen the too many faces be faded into history, to betray their memory, not in the memory of them, but in the Ireland they lived in, the contributed to, fought for, died protecting, their memory of the stature of the island we are privileged to call home as are others, does not wilt, the ripple in the pond those not fade in reaching those that are too privileged like we all are, to call ourselves Irish. As John Hume once said,

“difference is an accident of birth, it is not something to be fought over, it is something to be respected.”

There is in one person’s eyes, no standard model of Irishness, we come in all shapes, sizes, colours, religions, duel nationalities, ethnicities, customs, and creeds, we are not bound to each other in almost all thinkable ways, but we are all bound by one thing,

we’re Irish.