Emigration Again This Time Sparked By Grubbiness

There have been many reasons, over the centuries, why people emigrated from Ireland in their droves.
A thousand year ago, or more, they left our shores to bring Christianity and, indeed, education to parts of Europe where their legacy is still celebrated.
In the 19th century, they left, of course, because of the potato famine which decimated the population.
In the middle of the 20th century, it was unemployment and poverty which forced, particularly young men, to leave Ireland.
Now, though, I fear a new wave of emigration.
This time, it will be spurred on not by poverty or famine or indeed a desire to spread God's gospel.
No. It will be as a result of Ireland becoming a nasty, grubby, greedy place where the only God worshipped is money.


We have long since passed the time when we expected moral leadership from our politicians. Having granted themselves more than 30 pay rises in the past ten years, they have demonstrated their greed for all to see.
It's hard not to blame them.
Our most senior politician, the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who received all of those pay rises and saw his salary almost treble in ten years, also pocketed large sums of money given to him by businessmen.
He says there were no favours asked or given.
Well, we might believe that if he had managed, once, to tell the truth to the Tribunal investigating his affairs.
Sure, it has not found evidence that he took money from the businessman Owen O'Callaghan. And that was the allegation which led to the Tribunal being set up.
But what it has found is vast sums of money in numerous accounts, in various currencies, amounts Bertie Ahern has failed to explain.
Bertie Ahern. What a legacy he will leave.
He has overseen the creation of vast wealth in Ireland during his term as Taoiseach. Sadly, most of it is concentrated in a very few hands.
We are still short of schools and have many, many schools in appalling condition.
The health service is a farce, a dangerous farce top heavy with administrators and short of front line staff not to mention equipment and facilities.
Crime is rampant, despite what Bertie Ahern says. We are short of prison spaces and of policemen.
And our heritage is being bulldozed, not to build a road to ease the lot of commuters, but to open up land for development.
In most countries, a site such as Tara would be treasured.
But then, Bertie Ahern has often talked about his admiration for the Chinese way of doing things. "Up and over, without all the public consultation," was more or less how he put it on one occasion.
There is no value placed on culture in Ireland any more.
There is little or no value placed on religion of any kind.
There is no value placed on honesty, decency or generosity.
If I was younger, I think I'd be off.
As it is, many of our young find the place distasteful.
And we're going to lose them.

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How Ireland Invented a New 'N' Word

You don’t hear the ‘n’ word being used these days, to describe people of a different colour.
The ‘n’ word. Nigger. A deeply and gratuitously and deliberately offensive word.
Those who use it nowadays display nothing but their own ignorance.

It is a word, which has, thank God, been consigned to history, a word despised by the civilsed, abhored by the decent and never spoken by those with a shred of respect for their fellow human beings.
So it is extraordinary, that one of Ireland’s most respected newspapers, and its national broadcasting service – I am talking about the Irish Times and RTE – have invented a new ‘n’ word which they have taken to using.
And this ‘n’ word is almost as insulting as its predecessor.
It litters conversations in Ireland.
It is used by those who would believe themselves to be part of the intelligentsia. It is used by politicians. It is used by leaders in almost every area of society.
It is a word, which indicates that we believe some of those in our society are different. It indicates that we believe ourselves to be, in some way, superior to others in our society.
It is a racist word.
We Irish know all about racism. When the people of Ireland first left its shores to seek better lives abroad, they were often greeted with signs reading: NO DOGS NO BLACKS NO IRISH.
They took on the lowliest of jobs, jobs nobody else wanted.
They were the subject of often pretty vicious jokes.
Right up to the end of the IRA’s hideous campaign of murder, the Irish in Britain were, in some places, vilified.
Paddies. Micks. Whatever.
The word now used in Ireland to discriminate against others may not sound as offensive as those or as ‘nigger.’
But it is.
And that word, the new ‘n’ word is ‘non-nationals.’
Let me explain why it is so nasty.
It is nasty because it is used only to describe those from Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa who have come to make their lives in Ireland.
We are told in a newspaper and on the radio “three non-nationals’ have been arrested for something or other.
We are told that the driver of a car involved in an accident is a non-national.
You know it is not an American to which they are referring.
You know it is not an Australian.
You know it is not a Norwegian.
You know it is not someone from England or Canada or Germany or Holland.
Because those we call Americans and Australians and Norwegians and English and Canadian and Dutch.
Non-national is reserved for Latvians and Romanians and Nigerians and Filipinos and Chinese and so on.
And it’s unpleasant.
And it’s insulting.
And it’s condescending.
And it’s wrong.
Because they are all nationals of their own countries. Some may very well be on their way to becoming Irish nationals.
It’s sad coming from a race of émigrés,
And I hope those who use the term, have the good grace to stop it.
Soon.

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