By John Knox
Just as the Queen began the first royal tour of southern Ireland for 100 years, I left. Not out of protest, it was just a curious coincidence. I happened to be at the end of a week’s cycling holiday around the Atlantic-splashed beaches of north Donegal.
I first left Ireland 50 years ago, on the cattle boat from Dublin to Glasgow. So much has happened since our Morris Minor was craned off that ship on a wet morning in June 1961. All of it has astonished me ever since.
I’ve watched the Republic join the European Union and become the Celtic Tiger economy, growing at 8 per cent a year, until the great crash in 2009. The North went through its tribal Troubles and has emerged as a more or less peaceful Home Rule province, though much bruised by its past.
The Queen is visiting an island greatly humbled by its destructive past and its ruined present. Everywhere we cycled, there were fancy new houses lying empty, sometimes whole estates of houses. Shops and restaurants were quiet. People spoke of the young leaving – at the rate of 1,000 a week – to find work in Australia, or Canada, or London or wherever. “There’s just nothing for us around here,” one young woman told me. Unemployment in the Republic is running at over 14 per cent.
Such has been the cost of the bank bailout, that a third of all government expenditure now comes from the EU–IMF loan. Ireland lost 12 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in the crash, twice as much as the UK. House values have dropped by 40 per cent since 2009. Individuals are having to extend their mortgages from 25 to 35 years. “Some people around here will be paying off the mortgage well into their 70s,” an innkeeper told me. She and her husband had, more wisely, used the boom years to repair the roof of their existing building.
The last time I was in Donegal, donkeys and carts were common. But now the roads are revving with smart new cars. What will happen when they need replacing, I wondered. How are their happy-go-lucky drivers going to cope with rising fuel prices?
Ireland has no oil of its own, or indeed any natural resources – except the big west wind. On the bikes, we experienced much of this bracing form of energy. It’s claimed that at certain times of day, 40 per cent of Ireland’s electricity needs are met by its 146 windfarms. But in a week’s cycling, I only saw one windfarm, so there can’t be many in Donegal. And what happens when the wind doesn’t blow?
One of the more alarming visits on our cycling tour was to the grey-stoned workhouse in Dunfanaghy where, in the 1840s and 50s, the victims of the potato famine and the estate clearances were taken under the less than gentle care of the Poor Law Commissioners. Ireland is not quite back to those unhappy years, but welfare benefits have been cut by 15 per cent and public sector pay by an average of 13 per cent.
Yet, for all the austerity, Irish people remain as happy as Larry, at least on the surface. They will survive cheerfully. Like many people across Europe – from Greece to Iceland, even to Scotland – they are simply unwilling to accept a lower standard of living. They will go on spending as long and as fast as their credit cards will allow, and then they will borrow more. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this (not so) petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded (financial) time.” And when they cannot borrow more, they will do what it takes to keep up that standard… work harder, protest more, emigrate.
Say what you like about the irresponsibility of the lenders – and the wide boys of Irish capitalism – at least there is something to show for the boom years. All those huge, tacky, mock-Georgian houses with ranch-style gateposts may be ugly and scattered like litter across the countryside, but they are well built and will leave a lasting legacy. The roads are well maintained. The schools we cycled past looked fresh and well equipped. Ireland must have built up a large pool of skilled tradesmen.
And in this struggle for recovery, some of the enduring traditions in Ireland still stand: democracy and Catholicism. I was astonished to see a church full for a children’s First Communion service on a Saturday morning, despite the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.
Election posters still hung from lamp-posts after the recent general election in which there was a 70 per cent turnout, despite the mess the politicians have made of the economy. Cultural life, and more especially the sporting life, still go on in Ireland with live music in the pubs and a Gaelic football ground in almost every town. It must be said, though, that I heard not a word of Gaelic.
The Queen’s visit reminds us that both sides in the troubled British Isles relationship have cause for atonement. The Great Britons for their abuses in Ireland – and I admit my tribe of Protestant Scots “planted” in Northern Ireland was partly to blame, as were the upper-class English landlords. And the Irish themselves have plenty to be sorry for… their unforgiving stubbornness, the IRA bombings, the cruelties of the civil war.
Now, after an astonishing gap of 100 years, let us hope that the Queen can bring a healing touch to the sores of the past. And that President Obama, when he arrives in Ireland next week, will be able to point to a better future for the Republic which draws so much of its spirit from America.
Want to discuss other issues? Join the debate on our new Scottish Voices forum
Related posts: