Kevin Myers: Failure is actually what independent Ireland has always done best. We even failed at prosperity...
THE Taoiseach's recent 1916 speech, and the warm reception the references to the "heroes" of the GPO got from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, were depressingly illuminating. They confirm that our political and economic classes are steeped in denial and hallucination. Yes, Mother Ireland has reverted to ancient delusional habits, and is sustained by illicit bottles of poteen around the national household, labelled 1916. And whenever the old woman feels another attack of the vapours of 21st century realism attacking her, she reaches for a bottle, yet again.
A polity which feels the need to recycle ancient events as a modern inspiration is in dire trouble. That's the real lesson from the Taoiseach's rodomontade of last week. You can look at these things mythically or you can look at them literally: either way, no interpretation of the event of 1916 is of any use to us today. No grown-up anywhere else in Europe would cite one of the bloodiest and most terrible years in world history as an inspiration to us all. An Orangeman who cited the example of the 36th Ulster Division, or a modern English political leader who pointed to the sacrifice of the Accrington Pals on the first day of the Somme, as modern inspiration would be regarded as a suitable candidate for a locked ward. Irish nationalism should not be treated by any other standards.
Yet throughout independence we have deliberately deluded ourselves with the falsehood that there was no political life, no culture, no true Irishness, before 1916. Hence the Taoiseach's words about the 100th anniversary of the Rising: "We can say in 2016 when we get to O'Connell Street and look up to those men and women of idealism who gave us the chance to be the country we are, yes, we didn't fail our children, and most importantly of all, we didn't fail our country either."
What rubbish. This State has almost had a fetish for failing its children. This is the land of the industrial schools, paid for by the State, "inspected" by the State, then ignored by the State. There was no end to the post-1916 futile state-experiments in a separate and unique Irishness: the price was failure, poverty, ruined lives, emigration, and always always always, destroyed childhoods. Indeed, failure is what independent Ireland has always done best. Why, we even failed at prosperity. We didn't manage to build a single modern motorway, or a hospital with trolley-free corridors.
We certainly failed to live up to the inspiration of the men of 1916: or at least, I certainly hope so. There was Connolly, with his totalitarian Marxist gibberish, arming his 14-year old son to kill fellow Irishmen. Or Pearse, with his dreams of building a pre-medieval pseudo-Gaelic society, similarly arming his underage pupils. If you choose these men to be your heroes, don't be surprised if madness results. You cannot build a mature and modern state on such a bizarre and dysfunctional bipolarity -- for what do you get when you blend socialism with nationalism? In its own hallucinogenic way, the GPO was the test-tube for the horrors of 1930s Europe.
So naturally, every single attempt to "rededicate ourselves to the principles and the dreams of the men of 1916" -- as political leaders reiterated in the Single Transferable Speech in the decades that followed -- has ended in the same sorry plight of economic failure and emigration.
WE have just suffered a unique economic calamity. Including those no longer on the live register, because they're claiming old age pensions or because their savings disqualify them from the dole, about half-a-million people in Ireland have lost their jobs in the past two years. Maybe a further quarter-of-a- million people -- mostly immigrants -- have emigrated.
Thus our habitual immaturity and profligacy have now brought us to a familiar and toxic place, of recidivist indebtedness. To pay our debts, we must pay higher taxes. With PRSI and levies, our higher marginal taxes stand at around 55pc. The resulting revenue is needed, amongst other things, to pay the tax-free golden handshakes to retiring public servants which, needless to say, we in the private sector do not enjoy. Moreover, thousands of higher-paid civil servants are avoiding higher levies.
It's hard to imagine a more inequitable and socially disruptive taxation system than this. It gets worse. For high private taxes on the private sector drive the self-employed into the cash-based, black economy. This means higher taxes for the diminishing number of tax-compliant in the self-employed sector. That increased burden causes further migration to the black economy, and so on.
Welcome back 1982, but now with the jingoistic idiocy of 1966 thrown in for good measure.
Yes, I know I'm in a tiny minority here, but I really don't want to hear any more a-factual, romanticised gibberish about 1916. And politicians who go on about it are simply telling me that their addictions are not cured, the family alcoholic is in the linen-press getting hammered again, and we're nowhere close to dealing with our problems.
Report by Kevin Myers - Irish Independent
THE Taoiseach's recent 1916 speech, and the warm reception the references to the "heroes" of the GPO got from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, were depressingly illuminating. They confirm that our political and economic classes are steeped in denial and hallucination. Yes, Mother Ireland has reverted to ancient delusional habits, and is sustained by illicit bottles of poteen around the national household, labelled 1916. And whenever the old woman feels another attack of the vapours of 21st century realism attacking her, she reaches for a bottle, yet again.
A polity which feels the need to recycle ancient events as a modern inspiration is in dire trouble. That's the real lesson from the Taoiseach's rodomontade of last week. You can look at these things mythically or you can look at them literally: either way, no interpretation of the event of 1916 is of any use to us today. No grown-up anywhere else in Europe would cite one of the bloodiest and most terrible years in world history as an inspiration to us all. An Orangeman who cited the example of the 36th Ulster Division, or a modern English political leader who pointed to the sacrifice of the Accrington Pals on the first day of the Somme, as modern inspiration would be regarded as a suitable candidate for a locked ward. Irish nationalism should not be treated by any other standards.
Yet throughout independence we have deliberately deluded ourselves with the falsehood that there was no political life, no culture, no true Irishness, before 1916. Hence the Taoiseach's words about the 100th anniversary of the Rising: "We can say in 2016 when we get to O'Connell Street and look up to those men and women of idealism who gave us the chance to be the country we are, yes, we didn't fail our children, and most importantly of all, we didn't fail our country either."
What rubbish. This State has almost had a fetish for failing its children. This is the land of the industrial schools, paid for by the State, "inspected" by the State, then ignored by the State. There was no end to the post-1916 futile state-experiments in a separate and unique Irishness: the price was failure, poverty, ruined lives, emigration, and always always always, destroyed childhoods. Indeed, failure is what independent Ireland has always done best. Why, we even failed at prosperity. We didn't manage to build a single modern motorway, or a hospital with trolley-free corridors.
We certainly failed to live up to the inspiration of the men of 1916: or at least, I certainly hope so. There was Connolly, with his totalitarian Marxist gibberish, arming his 14-year old son to kill fellow Irishmen. Or Pearse, with his dreams of building a pre-medieval pseudo-Gaelic society, similarly arming his underage pupils. If you choose these men to be your heroes, don't be surprised if madness results. You cannot build a mature and modern state on such a bizarre and dysfunctional bipolarity -- for what do you get when you blend socialism with nationalism? In its own hallucinogenic way, the GPO was the test-tube for the horrors of 1930s Europe.
So naturally, every single attempt to "rededicate ourselves to the principles and the dreams of the men of 1916" -- as political leaders reiterated in the Single Transferable Speech in the decades that followed -- has ended in the same sorry plight of economic failure and emigration.
WE have just suffered a unique economic calamity. Including those no longer on the live register, because they're claiming old age pensions or because their savings disqualify them from the dole, about half-a-million people in Ireland have lost their jobs in the past two years. Maybe a further quarter-of-a- million people -- mostly immigrants -- have emigrated.
Thus our habitual immaturity and profligacy have now brought us to a familiar and toxic place, of recidivist indebtedness. To pay our debts, we must pay higher taxes. With PRSI and levies, our higher marginal taxes stand at around 55pc. The resulting revenue is needed, amongst other things, to pay the tax-free golden handshakes to retiring public servants which, needless to say, we in the private sector do not enjoy. Moreover, thousands of higher-paid civil servants are avoiding higher levies.
It's hard to imagine a more inequitable and socially disruptive taxation system than this. It gets worse. For high private taxes on the private sector drive the self-employed into the cash-based, black economy. This means higher taxes for the diminishing number of tax-compliant in the self-employed sector. That increased burden causes further migration to the black economy, and so on.
Welcome back 1982, but now with the jingoistic idiocy of 1966 thrown in for good measure.
Yes, I know I'm in a tiny minority here, but I really don't want to hear any more a-factual, romanticised gibberish about 1916. And politicians who go on about it are simply telling me that their addictions are not cured, the family alcoholic is in the linen-press getting hammered again, and we're nowhere close to dealing with our problems.
Report by Kevin Myers - Irish Independent