Ireland has a tradition of seeking help from the Continent, in the form of soldiers, swords, cannon – generically fíon Spainneach. It’s not surprising that we are comfortable in the Union. For the British, where sovereignty has been long attested by ‘divers sundry old authentic histories’, it’s a different matter.
A fifteenth century English treatise loudly complained of the tricky trade practices of foreigners and argued for a protectionist regime under which home industry would thrive. The future would be bright, since England dealt in solid goods everyone wanted while the foreigners sold only ‘fripperies, niffles and trifles’.
Two novels by Irish authors, ‘Conversations with Friends’ by Sally Rooney and ‘Midwinter Break’ by Bernard MacLaverty, will compete with eight others from France, Pakistan, the UK and the USA for a prize that is worth €100,000 to the winner.
They say that keeping a pet and learning to look after it ‑ even experiencing its death ‑ can teach a child valuable lessons. So too can following a football team. It teaches you that though sometimes in life you can win you can just as easily lose. Oh how you can lose.
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly, and ordered their estate. So the hymn went, and many in nineteenth century Ireland believed it. But not everyone.
People will tell you it’s hard to make a fortune. Don’t listen to them. They’re the losers. They don’t know what they’re talking about. All you have to do to become seriously rich is follow three simple rules.
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Ireland is dependent on inward investment, which is hostile to regulation of the market. At the same time our history is one of above average social integration and consensus. With the housing crisis, which will not be solved without huge state intervention, these two elements are headed for a clash.
The much-decorated American poet – he won two Pulitzers and a National Book Award – was known for conveying ‘in the sweet simplicity of grounded language a sense of the self where it belongs, floating between heaven, earth and underground’.
Ernest Blythe, a south Antrim Protestant, appeared as the only Gaeilgeoir in his parish in the 1911 census. In this heavily Church of Ireland district, even the McCarthys and the Dohertys were Protestant.