Archive | opinion

The Irish Times on the death of John D. Sheridan

By wDsWULo3QCRaKK on 29th April 2017 in opinion

Paradise Alley by John D. Sheridan Following John D Sheridan’s death in 1980 The Irish Times stated:

Like that other great Scottish-born Irishman, James Connolly, he had a deep sympathy with Dublin’s working people. But his task was not to politicise them, nor to caricature them with bold pigments, but rather to cherish their warm particularities, and portray their idiosyncrasies. This, too, was to conserve and advance their humanity. How much, indeed, do the people of “Strumpet City” owe to the denizens of “Paradise Alley”?

I’ll be coming back to Sheridan’s “Paradise Alley” in later blog posts, a book frequently described as “a great Dublin novel”, covering the time of the 1913 Lockout.

Small world, small country, big conflicts – why familiarity is killing the Irish public spirit

By wDsWULo3QCRaKK on 26th November 2009 in opinion

There was a tweet recently on Twitter that I thought was very telling on how Ireland operates. From @bohoe:

In Ireland, complaining about a service is to disturb a friend of a friend. Elsewhere, as a way to improve everyone’s lifes.

We’re afraid to complain because we’re afraid someone we know will eventually find out. We all know people in Ireland who’d have this kind of conversation:

“Can you believe Johnny sent back the steak in the restaurant last week?”
“Really, I didn’t think Johnny would’ve had the cash to even be in a restaurant, never mind be posh enough to send it back”.

This familiarity is also the reason why many of us Irish always shop in the same shops, drink in the same pub, buy petrol in the same garages and so on and so forth.

Familiarity increases tolerance, wrongly in some cases

But it’s also the reason why we’ll put up with shoddy service and quality in many stores simply because we know the people who own those businesses, and we’re afraid of confronting these acquaintances by pointing out where problems might exist. But also, this fear of the familiar is also the reason why we’re afraid to shop elsewhere because we’re afraid of what might be said about us by those acquaintances.

But this familiarity extends to more professional levels as well, and I believe that it’s one of the key reasons why Ireland doesn’t have a whistleblowing culture, nor is the government inclined to even attempt to foster one.

Why no whistleblowing?

Just think about how much shady, underhanded, immoral and somewhat downright illegal activities once one could/can get away with when one knows one is very unlikely to be discovered by any effectual regulators, but more importantly one will never be exposed by ones colleagues who have a financial benefit in ones success in such activities rather than ones downfall because of such activities.

If you think of all the misdeeds carried out in Ireland in the past few years, remember that (with the exception of Eugene McErlean in the AIB) there hasn’t been a single person “on the inside” who’s stood up (metaphorically obviously) and exposed the wrongdoings (legal, or moral) that were going on.

We’re too selfish to really care?

Was this wall of silence and frantic looking the other way all because of what was intimated on the RTE Frontline recently by Eamon Delaney, editor of Magill, that Ireland is essentially a selfish society – we’re out only to make sure we’re personally looked after and not willing to rock the boat in any way to put that at risk?

In addition to this societal selfishness, I think that our government has also been somewhat to blame in the fostering of this wall of silence – look at the reaction to public personalities who raised issues in the run-up to the collapse – witness Bertie Aherns “let them commit suicide” comment for example. When you see, as an example, the fallout from the journalistic exposure of the unreasonably large expenses incurred by our politicians, you can see why “looking the other way” can be of benefit to the politicians as well.

Caring isn’t being a crank

If you do highlight something you see as wrong in Ireland these days, you’re seen as a crank rather than being a publicly spirited person who might see something wrong with what’s being done. If you try to expose the wrongdoings of others and do so in the vain home that such exposure might bring these wrongdoings to an end, you’re seen as someone with an axe to grind rather than trying to do some good. Though you’re intentions may be purely honourable in an attempt stand up to the wrongs and to improve the cesspit of a country that we’re living in, you’re portrayed as being destructive rather than positive, and like quicksand, you’re dragged back into mire.

Sad, sad, sad!

Diaspora, schmiaspora! How about the chickens who came home to roost?

By wDsWULo3QCRaKK on 29th September 2009 in opinion

This is probably a little off-topic for ValueIreland.com, but over the week just gone I found myself thinking a fair bit about what happened at Farmleigh at the Global Irish Economic Conference, or more particularly what wasn’t happening at Farmleigh.

This event received some coverage while it was on, but on the whole, I think that it pretty much passed most of the Irish population by. I personally listened to, and read, any coverage that was immediately to hand, but didn’t go looking for any in depth coverage.

So, cards on the table first of all – the main things I read about it were the list of attendees and some other blurb on the website, the comments from Michael O’Leary on what he thought about the conference, and Brendan Hughes review on his blog regarding his experiences at the conference over the weekend. The Irish Times also has had some good coverage in the past week.

Sceptical about outcomes

Apparently, there are 5 “business plans” that have come out of the weekends private discussions (therefore any indepth analysis of the weekend was pretty much stifled) at the conference which are to be taken on by the Taoiseach and submitted to his Innovation policy group.

If, as has been mentioned and widely ridiculed on Twitter, one of these business plans is to be an “Ireland Portal”, then I can only repeat my comparison of the usefulness of this conference to the recent Ideas Campaign. Where the Ideas Campaign was pitched as being for the plain people of Ireland, the GIEC was instead for the more important (richer or more powerful) Irish people, many of whom don’t either live or work in Ireland, and don’t experience our current difficulties on a daily basis.

Where the Ideas Campaign didn’t allow any negativity or whinging, the GIEC had its own version of preventing any valid reviews of it’s deliberations – it didn’t allow the general public or the press any access to hear any of the discussions.

Talking shop for the great and the good

From the start of the weekend, I have to admit that my scepticism of what might happen at Farmleigh could be best explained by the same reason why Michael O’Leary declined to attend the conference – it was in his (and my own) opinion, likely to be no more than a talking shop amongst the usual “in-crowd”.

You can see the list of attendees at the conference here – the supposed great and the good of the Irish diaspora. But look closer – I know who I’d like more to have an input into a “business plan” on the future of the country if it came down to a decision between Michael O’Leary or Cathal Goan of RTE (strangely present as also pointed out by Kevin Myers), as an example. It was inspiring also, to see a number of property developers in the list of attendees as well – including one at least that I expect will be bailed out by the government through NAMA.

Many names you won’t recognise at all, so you’d have to wonder how great or how good they actually are – or if they’re just there because of their networking skills and contacts, or their generous contributions to some one, or some cause, or some thing.

One attendee I noticed is employed as a “vice president” with an American institution where you’re pretty much awarded this level as long as you put in 4 or 5 years service – this person has been there 11 years and has moved no higher. The great and the good indeed!

The Diaspora don’t live here – get over it

This conference was initiated, I believe, by David McWilliams. I read much of what Mr. McWilliam writes for the newspapers but I haven’t read his books. His fascination with the Irish diaspora is something that I don’t really understand, though I do have a lot of time for much of his writing.

One of the supposed suggestions from the weekend was to provide “global citizenship” to the estimated 80m Irish diaspora across the world. This, apparently, is designed to “cement identity and invites the holder to experience the homeland at least once in their lives” according to Brendans comments.

There’s a reason why the Irish diaspora don’t live in Ireland, or why they don’t want to visit Ireland – just look around you!

I can’t speak for everyone, but you only have to look at our weather, our standard of government, our leaching civil and public service, our governments helplessness in our current dire economic situation, our countries poor infrastructure, our comparatively overpriced hotels, restaurants and poor customer service, and many other problems that this country has to realise why people would rather live in southern California, Hong Kong, New York or anywhere else other than Ireland at the moment. Giving the diaspora a passport isn’t going to increase the likelihood of either their moving here permanently, or even visiting, at the moment.

The focus of the GIEC was on the Irish diaspora with the odd hanger on from inside Ireland as well – but all the usual suspects. You can give a small amount of credit to David McWilliams at least for trying something, but as I said above, the focus on the diaspora is misguided.

The missed opportunity

If you’re looking for people who want, and need, to see Ireland turn itself around as quickly as possible, but also who have the kind of international experience that the government seems so keen on “tapping”, then why are we not looking to the people who have made the commitment to Ireland that the diaspora have not, and probably won’t make?

In the past number of years, thousands of Irish people who have lived and worked across the world – some for long periods of time – and many side by side in the large multi-national corporations with the attendees at Farmleigh over the weekend, have all returned home to live and work and bring up their families in Ireland.

Continually ignoring the opportunities

For many, after successful careers abroad, the returning Irish emigrants are trying to assimilate back into Irish life. For many it’s a struggle.

Brendan Landers put some of the difficulties very elegantly in a recent piece in the Irish Times. Others will give you examples of how returning emigrants are overlooked for jobs because Irish companies tell them that they “don’t know how things are done in Ireland” – despite their having the international expertise that our government supposedly craves so much.

More will relate experiences of how years of experience abroad counts little when many Irish companies are considering hiring returned emigrants – trying to find work in Ireland could almost be likened to starting all over again.

Our government is falling over itself to bring together a group of Irish people who are living and working abroad, yet there is a another group of people who have done all this and still moved home to Ireland. This group of people have the same experiences as the diaspora, but have the added experience and knowledge of what it’s actually like to live and work in Ireland as well.

Surely such a combination of knowledge is vastly more useful to a government trying to turn things around – but then again, this is a government who turns to consultants to sort most things out rather than working with those that actually have an indepth knowledge of what’s really going on.

The greatest irony of all this is that if these very same people who are now living and working in Ireland had stayed away in London, Hong Kong, New York or Tokyo, they would now be courted by the Irish government and David McWilliams because they’d be seen as having the answers to Irelands problems.

Yet by showing a real commitment to Ireland and a belief in what Ireland can provide to them and their families, these people are in most instances ignored completely at a time when they could be the countries greatest asset at the present time.

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