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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The Less There Is The More The Better

A friend of mine used to say, apropos absolutely nothing: The less there is the more the better. Or was it: The more there is the less the better? Not that it makes any difference.
He came from Northern Ireland which may or may not be an explanation.
And even though I haven't the foggiest notion what he was on about, I think he was right.
It is universally, agreed, I think, that the quality of television programmes is in inverse proportion to the number of television stations which exists.
It stands to reason, I suppose, that when available resources are thinly spread, the result is poor quality everywhere.
So these days, with hundreds and hundreds of television stations available on satellite and cable, we are more likely to hear people complaining that ‘there’s nothing on television.’
It is true too, that the more cars people buy in an effort to get from A to B more quickly, the slower it’s going to be. Our roads are becoming more and more clogged as more and more people can afford to buy cars and do so.

It’s the same with aeroplanes. There are now more of them flying than at any time in history. And the result is, that while actual flights don’t take much time, travelling by air does because of the endless hours we all seem to spend in airports due to security, delay and the sheer volume of people travelling.
We have more policemen on our streets than ever before. And, guess what? We have more crime than ever before.
We have more news outlets than ever before what with newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations. And the result is, we’re told more lies and subjected to more spin, than every before.
Science and research have ensured that we now have more medicines and drugs to fight disease and illness than ever before. We also have more people dying of disease than ever before.
The world produces more food than ever before. And more people are dying of hunger than ever before.
We produce more energy than ever before. And there are, world wide, more shortages of energy than ever before.
There are more countries in the United Nations than ever before. And there are more countries in conflict than ever before.
There is more recycling than ever before. And there is more waste dumped than ever before.
There are more species of animal being discovered than ever before and more being made extinct than ever before.
There is more knowledge about what food is good for us than ever before. And there is more bad and dangerous food than ever before.
There is more education than ever before. And there is more stupidity than ever before.
There is more reason to share than ever before. And there is more greed than ever before.
And here’s are a few corollaries.
There is less religion and more sin.
There is not as much faith in God and more evil.
There is less good and more bad.
There is less love and more hate.
There is less hope and more despair.

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