Irish Bust

The crash of the Celtic Tiger has resulted in many distressing stories, with some of the misery to a not insignificant minority being  deserved. But when the heartbreak gets very local and personal and vivid it becomes more wrenching. Out in Ballyduff  just now — that parallel Waterford  universe of an Ireland of surpassing beauty with older values...Read more »

It is that time of the evening in Ireland. There is a vixen in my life and she skulks into my garden to eat apples now every day. Do foxes eat apples? I wondered too. But through sheer epistimology I can now swear that they do, and that they are mine. The golden apples...Read more »

Went for a walkabout in Cork today, so good for the spirit, and here is what I saw in the face of  the political shambles and recessionary gloom. I saw at start of journey a taxi driver who refused to take more than 5 euros for a 12 euro ride, because he was new to the game after...Read more »

Shortly before April Fool’s Day, somewhere between Marbella and Pamplona rumours surfaced of a fresh sighting of another one of Mother Erin’s formerly fattest and fastest of money-throwing cats trying the disappearing act, tail between his now skin-skin-skinny legs, dragging a tiny travois of frittering gold dust like some Shah on the run. A...Read more »

In the face of dire economic troubles, the Irish are searching ravenously for new business ideas, uplifting socially and otherwise, including those that involve landing a visit from Elizabeth Hurley. That curvaceous English model was just given a thousand welcomes in Kildare, followed by an appearance on the Late Late Show, for a special...Read more »

The news lately has remained so bad you could laugh for crying. As tax revenues have dried up, the country’s most ambitious schemes for the future have shut down one-by-one. Manufacturing plants keep closing; urban redevelopment schemes and support for the arts, road works, and soaring bridges all dematerializing. The six public libraries in...Read more »