NIAGARA FALLS —
Someone was bound to toss a wet blanket on the St. Patrick’s Day celebration.
I still treasure the many enjoyable times that I shared with my brother during a trip to Ireland in the late 1970s, a charter tour sponsored by the Niagara Falls Ancient Order of Hibernians.
As we quickly discovered then, Ireland was hurting. More than half the people were on some kind of public assistance.
But the Emerald Isle quality of life took a dramatic turn in the 1990s and the boom continued until the end of the century.
Then, as author Fintan O’Toole, a columnist and critic for the Irish Times, recounts in his new book, “Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger,” the bust hit Ireland.
I must admit that, until I heard an interview with O’Toole Wednesday (on National Public Radio), I had no idea how much the luck of the Irish had really dried up. It was enough to take the glow off this year’s celebration.
As one writer reviewing O’Toole’s book wrote: “The Celtic Tiger has rolled over on its back, all four paws stiffly in the air.”
This latest update on Ireland is mind bogging:
• The country’s gross indebtedness is larger than Japan’s.
• About 17 percent of the houses in Ireland are vacant, probably because housing prices in Dublin, for example, shot up 519 percent between 1994 and 2006. Three years after that report, there’s little sign of reversing that trend.
• The average Irish family has lost half its assets.
• The jobless rate is rising faster that anywhere in Europe.
• A major part of the country’s problems, O’Toole says, is that palms are greased, backs scratched and old pals promoted. (Sounds like they’ve borrowed a page from Tammany Hall or even Cook County, Ill.)
Terry Eagleton of The Guardian notes that when Ireland became well-heeled for the first time in its history, it also was known as a land of massive tax breaks and loose financial regulations. At one point, it was referred to as ‘The Wild West of European Finance.’
Ethics were often the preserve of the church, Eagleton says, but now that that has been undermined, there’s little evidence of civic or public morality to take its place.
And we think that we have it bad in the Empire State.
•••
A BRIGHTER NOTE: Forget all that gloom and doom about Ireland, a friend suggested. “Maybe someone never heard your story about asking for directions on that trip years ago.”
After driving through the countryside for about three hours — not having a clue where we were — my brother spotted a police officer (a Garda) near an intersection and urged me to pull over for help.
Of course the officer had the first question (”Where ya’ from?)
When we got past that, I told him we were looking for a specific restaurant. He knew instantly.
“Go straight up this road six miles. Half way there, you’ll see a big white church on the left. Don’t turn there. Keep going another mile and you’ll be at Sign Post 15. Don’t turn there either because the road is closed off. What you want is a small brown house at the next intersection. Actually, two blocks past that. Turn right. You’ll be going the wrong way on a one-way street, but don’t let that throw you, cause that’s just what you’re doin’ now. The restaurant is on the left; but it used to be across the street.”
•••
ON THE MOVE: Bill Michelmore, a former Niagara Gazette reporter with a knack for producing bright stories, has purchased a small home in a placid Hudson River community, a short drive from the Big Apple.
Since retiring several months ago, he has been freelancing and working occasionally on film scripts.
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