Kreuzberger wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 10:47 pm
Ireland; something has happened, hasn't it?
Twenty years ago it was a dreadful place apart from a few surf spots on the west coast and the odd seafood restaurant in Dublin.
Yes, Intel waltzed in like a pied piper for other tech luminaries. Yes, the catholic church shat the bond of trust which it has enjoyed for centuries. But, the crash hit them hard and those straightened times usually result in social retrenchment. The country was as good as fucked.
Yet still the social juggernaut of change has hurtled onwards. Same-sex marriage, medical equality for all, and Rome being relegated to the status of a Six-Nations weekend away.
And now, a bunch of erstwhile terrorists being elevated to the most popular political party in the country with a progressive agenda which they barely bothered to campaign upon if, as I interpret, their campaigning was largely restricted to where the were fielding candidates.
So what has happened? Does there need to be a single tipping-point that renders the gammon irrelevant, or what there a happy conjunction of circumstance which finally made a nation see beyond yesterday?
I'm writing this as an outsider, with no real knowledge, so take it as anecdotal.
Ireland has for generations been a net exporter of its young people - I've witnessed a similar, through smaller effect in Scotland during my years in education and industry.
I witnessed the Irish diaspora when working abroad - young smart people, opening their eyes to a biger world where things are done differently.
I'd hazard thatin earlier generations, the emigres were also free from the cloying influence of local priests and gobshite gammon m/p|atriachs.
The difference with the Scottish diaspora is.
a) The Scots tended to head for Empire locations (London, Canada, Australia), I understand the Irish diaspora spread more broadly - into the EU and USA in particular.
b) The "Celtic Tiger" boom, and the later HQ relocations provided a pull factor for some of the emigres to move back home, bringing their skills, experience and ambitions with them.
Final thought:
Depressed areas of Britain have never enjoyed that boom to draw their emigres home.
Places like Stoke and Hull are unlikely to experience an epiphany, because the youth with the necessary imagination are leaving.
Compare with the American Bible Belt.
It's a thought.
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead. Aristotle