I love it when I catch the RTE programme, Reeling In The Years, usually by mistake. Last night, I saw the programme featuring 1982 in Ireland. Rugby was big news – we won the Triple Crown. The other big news was the economy – we were in a deep recession. There was plenty of political turmoil. Familiar? Very – except that in 1982 we had not just emerged from 15-20 years of incredible growth and wealth. And perhaps it is that fact that makes it so difficult for us to accept and come to terms with this recession this time.

Last Friday, the Late Late Show began with one of the most hysterical and depressing panel discussions I think I have ever heard. Four (as far as I can remember) journalists discussed just how dire this crisis is for Ireland. The hysterical ranged from Ger Colleran who suggested that the people of Ireland would like the errant property developers to be shot (figuratively speaking) to Kevin Myers foretelling that it won’t just be our children but our grandchildren and even great grandchildren who will pay for this NAMA bailout of the banks. The whole discussion was totally unbalanced and very dark.
Certainly I know that this country is ‘in the shit’ financially, as are many families and I am not for one minute trying to trivialise that fact. But, as I am constantly saying to my husband, it is only money. We seem to have lost all perspective.
Ireland has not changed. We have not gone from a country of winners to losers overnight. We are still a great little country, full of imaginative, creative, energetic, hard working people. We are a nation who can communicate and sell like few others. We are witty and deeply spiritual, if no longer overtly religious. All the talents we used to build the great wealth of the Celtic Tiger era are still intact.
But if we keep being brainwashed by this wholly exaggerated and dark view of ourselves we will be stuck in the economic doldrums for a whole lot longer than we need to be, or that is good for us individually.
We need to stop the blame game. We all understand how it was our obsession with property that was at the heart of our financial woes. But we need to let the law and economic forces deal with that. The rest of us need to focus on getting our mojo back!
Ireland is going through a painful and major detoxification. We are clearing greed and corruption from our business and financial world. We are also witnessing the clearance of cruelty and abuse of power by the Catholic Church. At the end of this process Ireland Inc., will be a morally and spiritually enhanced country – through and through.
In the meantime, we individually, must all remember who we are. We are still a wonderfully articulate, expansive, open minded, well educated people, as we always were. And now more than ever we need to remember that. Because without that confidence we cannot move forward.