Dublin subway doesn't surprise

It would be hard for an inveterate Corkonian to be taken aback by today’s news that Dublin is seeking to finally connect its many rail-lines by way of Ireland’s first urban subway system.

Living in Cork is a bit like listening to a continuous series of announcements of what’s better in the more sophisticated, more metropolitan and seemingly just plain better Dublin.

Since the times of the Pale and beyond, Dublin has dominated Ireland.Not only is it Ireland’s largest city; geographically it’s also a primate city, and for that reason it not just outshines the next largest city, Cork, but rather altogether eclipses it.

Corkonians are fond of calling Cork Ireland’s “real capital”. It’s a phrase bandied about to tourists as a sort of in-joke among Corkonians, but it unfortunately has no grounding in reality. Dublin isn’t just the capital, it feels like Dublin often is Ireland.

In late 2008 Cork threatened to make a bold push into national predominance with the construction of The Elysian, which at 17 storeys tall broke the record as Ireland’s tallest storied building. Writing this from the 21st floor of a Manhattan skyscraper it may be easy to laugh at a 233ft high structure being Ireland’s tallest, but that’s the way it is, and it was a landmark for Cork.

Unfortunately the time of the building’s construction couldn’t have been worse, and it remains almost completely unoccupied.

Rather than standing as a proud tall edifice to the new Cork, the progressing Cork, it has the look and feel of a ghost hotel, and casts a gloomy shadow that constantly harks reminder to passers-by of the dreaded recession and its consequences.

But even Cork’s minor almost-achievement in the form of the Elysian has already been overshadowed dozens of times over by Dublin’s relative magnificence and grandeur.

The recently completed Aviva Stadium, an architecturally and technically magnificent piece of work, is already a more impressive accomplishment than anything that’s been completed in Cork’s recent history, and that’s not to mention Dublin’s soon to be opened breathtaking slanted cubic Convention Center which hangs beautifully over the banks of the Liffey and will be another beautiful landmark for Dublin, as if it needed another. Meanwhile Cork’s GAA pitch and soccer and rugby stadia could have been pulled from another era and the most impressive feat of modern building we’ve had was the doomed Elysian.

When that’s added to the fact that seemingly every major office, center and headquarters in the country is in Dublin –not to mention almost all of our political and bureaucratic infrastructure– it’s hard not to feel like a distant poorer cousin that has never really stepped into the Pale which it was once excluded from.

Which is why today’s announcement that Dublin is to get another advancement to its transport network, which already far exceeds in advancement and scale anything we have down south in Cork, does not come as a surprise. It’s just another layer of icing on Dublin’s cake, while our own train network down South doesn’t extend far beyond the train - how ironically - to Dublin.

The final section of the M7/M8 motorway linking Cork to Dublin was recently completed and makes travel between Ireland’s two largest cities quicker than ever before.

Perhaps now would be an opportune moment to use any EU or domestic funding to make Cork a worthwhile destination.

By the way for fellow present or emigrated Corkonians who share my jealousy that Dublin’s getting an underground, the good old Peoples’ Republic of Cork website has long had a rather excellent graphic of what things would look like if we ever got once down South on its website here: http://peoplesrepublicofcork.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=341

American positivity and the recession

One of the few things it’s hard not to admire the Americans for is their positivity.

For a country that has its fair share of woe and trouble, Americans rightly pride themselves on seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. And one of the areas that this is perhaps most evident is in the dreaded ‘recession’ which has been dealt with very differently on either side of the Atlantic.

The recession was global of course. Prompted at first by an overvaluation of assets at US banks and clearing houses, it ultimately led to bank bailouts, credit crunches, and unemployment in just about every country in the world. But despite the ubiquity of the global economic misery, countries have reacted in very different ways to the economic collapse. Two examples: Ireland and the US.

Back home it’s hard to escape mention of the recession. It’s jokingly called the ‘r’ word, and people get so fussed about not mentioning it that the city of Cork has actually promulgated an official decree for a day in July during which no utterance of the dreaded word is to be made. The decree was made jokingly, of course, but there’s a serious point too. The problem, as the Lord Mayor obviously realizes, is that people simply can’t stop talking about it.

The Irish, myself included, have a slightly pessimistic slant that delights in misfortune. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to effect our mental state –we’re generally happy, outgoing people– but there’s nothing better for the Irishman or woman than a good moan or a nice whinge, to unload some pent-up frustration at the world. And if it’s not the weather you’re moaning about, you have the recession. But that’s the problem.

Constant talk of the recession has led to a huge amount of negativity in the Irish media, which in turn has created what David McWilliams calls a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s a bit like the famous story about the cancer patient who’s given a dummy pill and believes himself well. The placebo effect; the power of mind over matter, it’s all the same thing really. If we believe and keep talking about Ireland in recession it will stay that way. If we can see light at the end of the tunnel then it will eventually shine forth.

This also isn’t helped by the fact that despite deflation, Ireland is still an exceedingly expensive place to live, and it’s no wonder that almost a third of us now fear going hungry. The latest survey from Eurostat showed us that Irish prices are still far in excess of what they could and should be. Despite fifteen months’ of deflation you still don’t see rock-bottom price deals, and we’re still far out of line with the European average, which really tells you something about how steep are prices were before the economy even began contracting!

Cross the pond to America, though, and the situation on the street feels very different.

America may not be nearly as mired in economic turmoil as Ireland is, but when the word recession is used the context tends to be starkly different. If you were to go looking for the word ‘recession’ on a word-finding tour of midtown Manhattan, the first instance you’d probably encounter the word in would be: “Recession Buster! Chinese buffet combo just $4.50” rather than in the context of a radio news bulletin about the latest of a seemingly infinite series of job cuts.

There are ‘recession busters’ back home as well, of course, but they don’t seem to be happening with as much frequency, or if they are they’re not being as well advertised, as in America. Of course the situation’s don’t fit a perfect comparison, but the differences are there nonetheless.

Every Irish person has a natural suspicion of American positivity when it comes in the form of the mandatory ‘have a great day, sir’, which everyone Irish seems to instinctively mistrust, but when it comes in the form of a falsely positive belief in busting the recession, the American lesson is one which Ireland would do very well do learn from.

Time to forsake crummy Ryanair

I think that I’m right in saying that there’s been a subtle but noticeable switch in the Irish public’s perception of Ryanair in the past few months.

Ryanair, for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of flying them, is an Irish low cost carrier that’s grown to become Europe’s biggest low-cost airline through a manic-like drive on the part of its flamboyant Chief Executive, Michael O’Leary, to ruthlessly cut costs, often to the point of depravity and beyond.

If you did, like me, once admire the man’s brazenness, incredible business acumen, and in-your-face style, it would be hard to do so now.

At some point, Ryanair crossed ‘the line’ and went too far, and it’s found itself on the wrong side of that line ever since.

Perhaps that crossing of the Rubicon was the Bob Ross case, when the airline charged a disabled cerebral palsy sufferer to pay for use of a wheelchair at Stansted and was sued, and - thankfully - lost in Court.

Or perhaps it was the recent volcanic ash fiasco, when O’Leary made a futile defiant stand against the compensation required by European Union law, saying that Ryanair wouldn’t pay out, until he was forced to meekly back down when threatened with mass lawsuits. The volcanic ash and wheelchair cases proved to many that Ryanair in general, and O’Leary in particular, are seized by a culture of impunity, where they think that they’re above the law.

Or perhaps it’s your own personal experience with the airline: you’ve experienced the cramped leg-room, the non-stop torturous advertising during flights, or reached to the seat ahead of you only to find that even the seat pouches have yielded to O’Leary’s insatiable appetite for profitability.

There are many reasons why you could hate Ryanair and all of them would be valid.

The mistreatment of passengers takes place on a literally daily basis. Today I wrote a story for IrishCentral today which details no less than three situations of the airline mistreating passengers: cancelling a flight to Spain without offering stranded passengers any help, inhumanely refusing to give passengers water when delayed for hours - and forcing the police, yes, the police, to do so -, and finally their deservedly abysmal rating in a consumers’ poll.

But perhaps the final indignity, and one which I initially disbelieved, was the airliner’s announcement that there would be - wait for it - a £1 toilet charge.

Every time you need to use the toilet, well, it’s gonna’ cost.

Defenders of the airline will point to Ryanair revolutionizing the world and beginning the budget travel age as reasons why one should still love the airline despite the sweatshop like conditions they impose on their patrons .

This may have been true at the dawn of the budget travel age, but now that that dawn has risen, it’s time to put your dignity above your wallet and pay a little bit more to be treated like a human - and not charged to use the toilet!

Washington Square Park & Irish Mythology

Sometimes it’s better not to know.

Oblivion is bliss, or so they say, and yesterday I had a salutary reminder of how true that was.

At the risk of sounding like a crazy, it’s the ghosts, you see.

Let me explain.

While researching an article for IrishCentral, I made the thoroughly unwelcome discovery that large swathes of Manhattan - including the part I’m staying in - are literally ridden, or so they say, with ghoulish figures.

And if I’m not a sucker for the ‘paranormal’, I certainly am for reason.

If something makes sense to me, it appeals to a part of my conscience that interprets that information as fact, and from there forms that information into emotions and fears.

This is how all of our brains work, on a very basic level, or so says my psychology-major room-mate.

Our subconscious can’t distinguish between fantasy - say, ghosts - and reality - say, politics - and once something that’s fantasy becomes convincingly enough explained, it lodges in the same part of brain that real facts do, and that, in turn, gives rise to irrational fears and superstitions such as the once I’m currently suffering from.

So here goes the story. Once someone dies in distressing circumstances, or has a particularly strong connection to somewhere, they leave an indelible ‘energy’ in that place. This sounds ridiculous enough, and is largely common knowledge, but here’s the bit about some of New York’s localities that’s a bit creepier:

Washington Square Park is built on an ancient burial site of about 20,000 graves, an ancient potter’s field where those who couldn’t afford proper burials were interred en masse. Not only that, but in the 19th Century they would actually hang people from the same trees which currently stand casting an air of doom-and-gloom over the park. And if it’s full of hipsters and junkies by day, it’s a very different place by night.

So this is creepy and slightly spooky and will probably dissuade me from going near Washington Square Park on tipsy rambles home, but it also adds, undoubtedly, to the place’s attraction. I’m as likely to furtively peep into that tree looking for some ghoulish apparition as I am to avoid the place.

And this, you see, is largely also the story of Ireland.

Ireland’s a bustling modern economy replete with everything you might expect from such a place. It’s full of electricity (yes, electricity), broadband (well, almost) and all the trappings and furnishings of a modern society.

Yet that’s not very exciting.

A large part of Ireland’s once-booming tourist trade has traditionally focused on drawing visitors to the site in search of such things as fairies, leprechauns, men wheeling turf on donkeys, and old men puffing on dudeens as they sit by a fireplace telling stories of the Black and Tans and brewing poteen somewhere in the back. Children trekked to school bare-foot and evil headmasters mercilessly dashed out macabre beatings.

That such figures, such modes of transportation, and such mythical creatures don’t exist is irrelevant. It’s the story that counts.

It was the stories of mythology that were the forerunners of modern fiction, and the great Irish legends that likewise spawned our own country’s proud literary tradition. When we were bored we could dream of Tir na nOg, when we were short of cash we could search for leprechuans.

Part of me has a strong inkling that mysterious ghostly figures populate the branches of the Hangman’s Elm late at night, but a more prevalent, and certainly more rational part of me discards that notion as fantasy.

But sometimes, usually, it’s just the story that matters, the fiction and the escapism that counts, and were it not for the legend of the ghosts, Washington Square Park, like Ireland, would be an undoubtedly less interesting place.

Reduced drink driving limit puts Ireland further in the grip of over-regulation

News that Ireland is to reduce its drink-driving limit to just 50mg of alcohol/ 100ml of blood is yet another mark on the road Ireland is blazing towards becoming a Nanny State.

It seems like as each year goes by another personal liberty is snatched by our Government.

Two years ago the powers-that-be in Dublin forced all liquor stores to close by 10pm; the recently announced Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Bill seeks to make illegal any substance with any alternation upon the Central Nervous System, and now even one drink may put you over the drink-driving limit!

Ireland is now a country in the grip of a regulation epidemic, where over-zealous domestic policy-making is compounded by a constant inundation of mandatory EU law. The result is a society that’s moving in an increasingly restrictive direction, and one which anyone who values their liberty and personal freedom should seek to leave.

Lest it be thought that I’m advocating drink driving and drug use, let me tell you that’s not the case.

When it comes to law-making, there’s a difficult balance to be struck between respecting peoples’ liberties and curtailing them for the better good. Yet the Irish government in recent years has shown a persistent slant towards legislative heavy-handedness which is detracting from our rights as citizens of a free democracy.

Liquor stores should be allowed open whenever they want. The draconian measure of forcing their closure by 10pm reeks of a style of governance better suited to the Middle Ages. If we really care so much about eliminating anti-social behaviour and curbing alcoholism, let’s tackle the problems head on by imposing stricter public order fines and initiating better alcohol treatment programs, rather than spoil all of society’s rights to pick up a bottle of wine at 10:30pm, which should almost be unalienable.

The psychoactive substances Bill was cut from much the same cloth as the Intoxicating Liquor Act. True, the scourge of head-shops and their legal highs needs to be eliminated with haste, but drafting legislation in such sweeping terms that any psychoactive herb becomes illegal is solving the problem at too great a cost for the law-abiding majority. Many alternative health seekers consume herbs which are mildly psychoactive, and often find such herbs to be safer treatments to pharmaceuticals which are often ridden with myriad side-effects. Such herbs, as well as useless ‘legal highs’ will soon be illegalized.

And lastly we have this latest measure. True, nobody wants to advocate drink driving, but the new law hits learner drivers far too hard than is necessary. Learners who have a concentration of just 20mg/100ml of alcohol in their bloodstreams will face a three month driving ban as well as a €200 fine. To get that kind of blood alcohol limit one would merely need to chug through one-third of a pint of beer. Should that really engender those consequences?

In trying to cut out drink driving Ireland’s national police force, the Gardai, would do better to focus their efforts on more extensive and persistent breathalyzing to catch real dangers rather than trying to put learners off the road for having committed the sin of driving after having had half a pint of beer!

This latest law annoys me not just in itself, for lowering the drink-driving limit to a needlessly and inconveniently low level, but also for the fact that it’s yet another example of the Irish government over-regulating an already heavily regulated society. One of the costs to Ireland of EU membership was subscribing to a second legal order and agreeing to take as law that legal order’s legislative output.

The least we can do is make sure our own law-making is a bit more libertarian!

Heritage certs a welcome gesture to the diaspora

The Irish Government’s decision to allow up to 70 million members of the Irish diaspora worldwide to apply for, and receive, certificates of Irish heritage is a move that should be welcomed by everyone involved.

It’s a gesture towards a sort of inclusiveness that’s been badly lacking where the Irish diaspora is concerned.

The ‘Irish Irish’, i.e. current citizens of Ireland, have an unfortunate history of being somewhat snobby towards their overseas brethren, and this measure is at least a starting step towards rectifying that fragmented relationship.

The Irish abroad have been unjustly depicted as phoney, pretentious and out-of-touch by large groups of the indigenous Irish population in the past. None of these charges have much, if any, support in reality, and it’s good and heartening to see that we’re finally acknowledging these people for what they are: as proud members of our global clan.

What’s unfortunate is the reason for the issuing of the Certificates.

Studying the details of the Certificate scheme, it’s pretty clear that economics played a rather large part in the decision to go ahead with the idea.

Although nothing concrete seems to have been ironed out yet, one feature of the certificates seems to be that they’ll make their holders eligible for a variety of discounts including reduced airfares to Ireland.

It’s hard to see Ireland’s economic collapse and ebbing tourist trade as a happy co-incidence in all this.

Call me cynical, but part of me thinks that one of the main reasons, perhaps even the main reason, for issuing the Certificates was to provide a boost to our economy and tourist trade.

If that’s the case, it’s a great pity that money and not a genuine desire to reach out and acknowledge the Diaspora was the motivating factor for the decision. It would have said a lot more had the scheme been announced at the height of the Celtic Tiger, when we didn’t need the extra tourism.

In any event, though, that’s not the point to be dwelled on. We should all be happy that the idea’s gone ahead.

Irish, Irish-American or even Irish-Jamaican, let’s unite in congratulating the government for taking on this worthwhile endeavour, listening to those who criticized the longstanding disconnect between the native Irish and the diaspora, and decided to embark on this scheme and open a new, and hopefully improved, chapter in Irish-Diaspora relations.

Irish politics a lost cause.

People who don’t have an interest in politics are often berated and belittled by those who do.

To not care about who’s running the country is a sign of ignorance to such people; proof that you truly are an imbecile, or ‘gombeen’ in the Irish way of throwing insults.

Yet there are plenty of young people in Ireland, like myself, who refuse to engage with politics because we’re just so damn fed up with it and see it as an exercise in circuity, a pointless endeavour incapable of grafting badly needed change onto Irish society.

This week gone by is a good example of just why many young Irishmen and women are beyond caring about what’s happening in the Dail.

One headline I read this week really epitomized just what’s wrong with Irish politics.

Kevin Myers, perhaps one of our most outspoken but brilliant political commentators, began a piece with the following headline: “Timid Fine Gael leaves us at mercy of toxic ruling caste”. It captures in just one succinct sentence why Irish politics is so enraging.

We just had a failed leadship coup in Fine Gael. Fergus O’Dowd and co.’s attempt to usurp the battle-worn Enda as leader of the main Opposition party brought me some long needed political excitement for Ireland. Change, I finally thought, was on the horizon.

I think it goes without saying that we’re all fed up with Fianna Fali. Yet where’s the Opposition and why aren’t they doing more to dislodge such a woeful and obviously incompetent government?

Fianna Fail have presided over Ireland’s economic ruination. A once vigorous roaring Celtic tiger lies economically and emotionally maimed. To call Ireland a shadow of its former self would perhaps even be going too far. I believe that in any other functioning democracy there would have been a national uproar with the presiding party immediately deposed of. Not in Ireland, though.

If the people aren’t going to exercise enough clout to clamour for a general election, then surely the Opposition party should?

Yet who can honestly say that Fine Gael is an exciting alternative to Fianna Fail, or that they have shown a dynamism and courageousness that begs for their immediate instatement as the ruling class, whether alone or in coalition?

For that reason Fine Gael have now sunk below Labour in opinion polls and rightfully so.

Admist so much incompetence, isn’t it only right that the leader of that party should be gotten rid of?

Obviously it’s not just I who holds onto that belief, as a sizeable chunk of Fine Gael’s frontbench came out publicly against the party’s leader. Yet Enda managed to shirk off the affront to this leadership in the most undiplomatic and ruthless way possible by firing the challenging party. Democracy, it seems, was flushed down the toilet.

What we’re left with in the wake of the Fine Gael fiasco is a political system even worse off than it was before, which is saying something. Swearing is becoming more and more common in the Dail, leadership challenges are dealt with by firing the challengers, and no-one seems capable of change.

What the Fine Gael leadership challenge briefly promised to bring was change into the Opposition party, which perhaps could lead to a change of leadership. It was a brief and wonderful moment that seemed - and was - too good to be true.

Even today the petty squabbles continue. Fine Gael refuse to co-operate with Sinn Fein because of an Army Council which even the Northern Ireland Independent Monitoring Commission thinks has ceased to exist. Noone seems capable of working together and even within parties ties are breaking down.

Is it any wonder, then, that young Irish have all but given up on their political system?

Seeing Ireland Through American Eyes

What a difference a week makes.

Since coming to New York to start my internship here last Monday, so much has changed that it would take an entire edition of this newspaper to give a proper account of what’s going on.

But let me try, as best I can, to introduce myself and tell you just a little bit about what I’ve been up to in the space of this first installment of my bi-monthly column.

My name’s Daniel O’Carroll, I’m 21, and studying law at University College Cork in Ireland.

I’m interning at this newspaper and am also working on this paper’s sister website: IrishCentral.com.

And so far, it’s been amazing.

But just before you begin to warm to me, let me tell you something that mightn’t go down so well: before I came here, I was a little suspicious of Irish-America and Irish Americans.

Who were these people, I wondered, whose fourth cousin twice removed came from ‘the County Mayo’, and who had an odd affinity to pints of Guinness and the Ring of Kerry? And just how truly Irish were they after all?

I had my doubts, but after just one week in an Irish-American newspaper, my perceptions of what ‘Irish American’ means are already changing.

Yes, there are plenty of phony ‘Irish-Americans’ whose knowledge of Ireland doesn’t extend far beyond Guinness, Ted Kennedy and Riverdance, but there’s also a majority of Irish Americans whose connection to the ‘old country’ is iron-strong, and who have been able to marry that impressive loyalty to Ireland with a surprisingly robust commitment to American ideals and values. These are the Irish Americans who I’ve found most impressive in my short stay here so far.

Perhaps my most unexpected observation about this culture, though, is that Irish Americans are often more enthusiastic about Ireland than the Irish themselves.

At New York’s many Irish bars, where the intersections between these two similar cultures are perhaps most easily seen, this becomes almost worryingly clear.

For us Irish, Ireland is often no more than a place that rains a lot. A place we inwardly love but outwardly love to moan about. For Irish-Americans, though, Ireland is a Utopian realm of happiness: a boundless expanse of green fields, little men with bowling hats, an of course, plentiful pubs.

If only.

Perhaps the often stark differences in our perceptions of the country we share heritage from come from our varying experiences there.

For current citizens of Ireland, it’s often hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Job cut follows job cut and we seem lumbered with a host of untalented and unchanging politicians who seem incapable of steering our fate in a better direction. Just yesterday Enda Kenny reacted to an internal challenge to his leadership by firing the challenging party. It’s hard to have hope.

Nothing seems to ever change and once more we look to the proverbial emigrant ship, which although now assuming the form of a Airbus 330, still carries us to the same destinations where we’ve traditionally sought refuge when the economic and political storm has blown strong.

It’s not that we don’t like Ireland, we just have to get out.

Perhaps it’s only once we leave the Irish shores and get infected with a jolt of that trademark American optimism that we can see Ireland for what it really is.

At the end of the day, despite political turmoil, economic ruination, and a never-ending series of Atlantic squalls, Ireland’s not truly a bad place. For all those negatives there’s something unique about Ireland and the Irish that makes us one of the best loved cultures in the whole.. It’s just a pity that it sometimes take Irish Americans to make us see Ireland for what it is.

For that, though, we should be grateful.