Irish Abroad reports that Ballybunion has joined the “Happy” craze with its own video remake of the Pharrell William’s song. I have to say that watching it brought a smile to my face and makes me want to get back to the ancestral homeland as quickly as possible.
Enjoy:
UPDATE: Couple of related editorials in The Irish Times within days of this post. Here, Vincent Browne poses “13 questions that have to be answered” about the banking crisis. And here, Ray Kinsella says that financial ethics are more important than regulation.
ORIGINAL POST:
Could the Irish banking and economic crisis been prevented? Is a similar financial fiasco likely in the future?
The answers appear to be maybe and probably, according to former International Monetary Fund economist and Irish Fiscal Advisory Council member Donal Donovan. He fielded questions from Irish Times Washington correspondent Simon Carswell and audience members during a 5 May forum sponsored by Irish Network-DC.
Donovan has served on two panels investigating Ireland’s property bubble, which fueled the country’s banking and budget bust. He said there is “high risk of another crisis.”
Despite such government probes, courtroom dramas and media headlines of the past few years, “more national debate” is needed about the systemic issues at the heart of Ireland’s financial woes, Donovan said.
Those problems can not be simply set at the feet of a few greedy bankers and civil servants who looked the other way as their elected bosses focused on the next election, he said. The Irish people also enjoyed riding the Celtic Tiger, and even financial experts from the IMF missed signs of the pending disaster.
A suggested third investigative committee might provide a “cathartic exercise,” Donovan said. “Only if we do this are we going to be able to go on.”
Simon Carswell, standing left talking with woman, and Donal Donovan, seated in tan jacket, sign copies of their books.
Some other highlights of the evening:
Donovan is co-author of “The Fall of the Celtic Tiger: Ireland & the Euro Debt Crisis. Carswell is the author of “Anglo Republic: Inside the Bank That Broke Ireland.”
Gerry Adams was released without being charged Sunday after four days of questioning by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Irish republicans and their supporters have insisted an old guard of the former Royal Ulster Constabulary were behind the arrest, which they say was politically motivated.
Sky News has video of Adams’ giving a press conference after he was freed, as well as Northern Ireland loyalist who tried to block his release.
This story is far from over. A report from the police agency will be reviewed by Northern Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions, which could still bring charges. Upcoming Irish and European elections bear watching, as does the Orange marching season just around the corner.
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has been arrested for questioning about the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a widow wrongly suspected of informing against the Irish Republican Army.
Adams was implicated by two IRA veterans who gave taped interviews to researchers for a Boston College oral history project on the four-decade Northern Ireland conflict known as the Troubles. The tapes were made available to Northern Ireland/British police in a complicated court battle. Here’s some perspective from a B.U. trustee.
Adams made himself available to the authorities, but denies any role in the killing. Here’s his statement on the Sinn Féin website.
Obviously, this story is developing. We will have to see if Adams is charged, and what impact this might have on upcoming elections and the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland. No doubt many on the island of Ireland would like to see Adams removed from politics and the public stage. But he has his supporters, as well, and has demonstrated an amazing talent for survival over the decades.
Foreign companies appear to have little investment interest in Ireland outside of Dublin, according to at least one minister review first quarter statistics from IDA Ireland.
Fifty-three of 89 visits were in the capitol, while counties Carlow, Kerry, Kildare, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford all failed to record an IDA-sponsored overseas investor in the first three months of the year. Counties Cavan, Kilkenny, Meath, and Westmeath recorded one visit each, while Clare, Donegal and Wicklow each had two, according to the Irish Independent.
“It is strikingly obvious that more needs to be done to achieve a greater balance in inward investment. The figures don’t represent where investment is going, but the reality is, that if you don’t show investors areas outside Dublin, they are not going to invest there,” said Fianna Fáil TD Michael McGrath of Cork.
Of all the memorable words and images to emerge from the four-day state visit to England by Irish officials , the most memorable might be yet to come. Queen Elizabeth confirmed that a member of the royal family will plan to attend the centennial commemoration of the Easter Rising in April 1916. Such an invitation has been discussed publicly for some time.
Stephen Collins wrote in The Irish Times:
Many in the mainstream Irish political parties feared the 1916 Rising commemorations might be hijacked by Sinn Féin, but republicans may now begin to fear the British royal family could steal the show. The presence of a member of a royal family should help ensure nobody steals the show and that the commemorations marking the first World War and the events that led to Irish independence will be truly inclusive of all strands of political opinion on the island of Ireland.
The decision is drawing criticism from historians such as Diarmaid Ferriter, a member of the advisory group working on the centenary.
The GPO after the Rising.
“The State can make this invitation, but what are we there for if we are not going to be asked for advice on big decisions like that?” Ferriter told the Times. “The State doesn’t own the legacy of 1916. Nobody does except the people. We are trying to organise public consultations to get people’s views.”
The full day of a state visit to England by Irish President has gone off without a hitch, continuing the work began three years ago when Queen Elizabeth II visited Ireland.
The Irish Times headlines “Ireland and Britain ‘walking to a brighter future,'” while The Times of London declares, “Former IRA chief has dinner with Queen.” The BBC offers numerous videos of the visit.
Along with the social and political symbolism of the visit, this military history story caught my eye. It’s about a ceremony in England retiring the flags of six Irish regiments after the Irish Free State was created in 1922. The regiments were the Royal Irish Regiment, the Connaught Rangers, the Leinster Regiment, the Royal Munster Fusiliers, the Royal Dublin Fusilers and the South Irish Horse.
Former IRA commander and Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has accepted an invitation to attend a British state banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle.
The Irish Times and other media outlets report that McGuinness will attend the 8 April banquet, which honors Irish President Michael D. Higgins. It is the first official visit by an Irish head of state since the modern political separation of the two islands began in 1922.
McGuinness and the Queen shake hands in Belfast, July 2012.
The Wall Street Journal said the visit “is designed to underscore Ireland’s evolving acceptance that, before independence in 1922, its people weren’t always unwilling participants in the U.K. and the global empire it led, and the shared history of the two nations is less deeply antagonistic than once claimed by Irish nation builders.”
The Journal‘s story continues:
The exchange of official visits is the latest in a series of steps that have taken place over the last three decades and have marked a gradual but steady mending of fences between the two nations, once bitterly divided over the fate of the six Irish counties that remain a part of the U.K. … The formal process of reconciliation has lagged behind deepening links between British and Irish people. A quarter of British people have some recent Irish forbears, while 50,000 directors of current British companies were born in Ireland.
Of the Northern Ireland republican, the BBC says:
As a youth, Martin McGuinness wore the uniform of an IRA volunteer – secretly, illegally and defiantly. Now, decades later, he will don a white tie and tails and publicly, cheerfully and – perhaps -still defiantly, attend the Queen’s banquet at Windsor Castle. We should not be too surprised. His journey has already seen him shake the hand of the Queen. Not to attend the first state visit of an Irish president would undermine all his promises, made as an Irish presidential candidate, that he would work for peace.
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams noted that McGuinness’s attendance might be a bridge too far for some republicans. “I would appeal to them to view this positively in the context of republican and democratic objectives and the interests of unity and peace on this island,” he said.
My wife and I attended the Washington, D.C. premiere of “On A River In Ireland,” which was among the showings on the last day of the 22nd annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capitol. The film, directed by John Murray and narrated by Colin Stafford-Johnson, was released last year under the title “The Secret Life of the Shannon.”
There’s some really incredible wildlife cinematography in this 60-minute film, including slow-motion footage of water bats, red squirrels and several specials of birds. Irish America posted several short videos from the film, including the mesmerizing murmuration of starlings at twilight.
One of the most poignant scenes of the film, not in the link above, are the lonely call of a male corncrake. The once-common species has suffered drastic population declines and is threatened with global extinction.
Stafford-Johnson makes several references to the impact that rapid development in Ireland is having on the Shannon. Other than himself paddling a canoe, the only glimpse of human touch on the river are silhouettes of ancient ruins along its banks, including Clonmacnoise in County Offaly.
The film is not a headwaters-to-mouth journey on the river, but rather a more season- and species-focused exploration. Nevertheless, I was disappointed that the film ignores the Shannon Estuary west of Limerick. This is clearly the more industrialized, seaport portion of the river, but an area that still has a vital role in the natural world as fresh water mingles with salt water.
The area also is personally special to me, since my ancestors are from the north Kerry townlands within view of where the Shannon meets the Atlantic Ocean, one of my favorite parts of Ireland.
River Shannon by Theresa M. Quirk.
The Irish Story has a great post exploring links between one of the early 19th century agrarian secret societies and the Irish hedge school.
The period of the 1820s was a tumultuous time for the Irish nation as it struggled to search for an identity within the Union and, with difficulty, sought to adapt to change in an age of radical thought and religious fervour. The notion of the overarching power of the hedge schoolmaster on Irish Catholic agrarian society is one example, found in both contemporary works and recent scholarship, of an attempt to understand the complex political, religious and economic effects on the mentality of Irish society which culminated in the Rockite movement of 1821 to 1824.
Here are links to three contemporary works cited in the piece:
Researches in the South of Ireland, Thomas Crofton Croker, 1824.
Memoirs of Captain Rock: The Celebrated Irish Chieftain, with some Accounts of his Ancestors. Thomas Moore, 1824
‘The Hedge School,’ from Traits and Stories of Irish Peasantry, William Carleton, 1830
Irish hedge school. From The Irish Story.