Summer Of Discontent

The last census showed, if proof were needed, that Ireland is relentlessly becoming a suburban society. And yet, we are all variously still close enough to the land for our year to arc and contour according to clearly defined and essentially pastoral markers. If it’s Oxegen weekend, it must be the real midsummer. After that we’re down the back strait of the Galway Races, the best known but far from only manifestation of the old Gaelic festival of Lughnasa.

But this year’s skies are darker toned than we’ve been accustomed to. I don’t mean the weather which, let’s face it, lets us down more than it lifts us up. (Even by our own dank expectations we’ve had it pretty bad these last six weeks). No, I’m talking economics and prosperity.
As I write, US banking regulators have seized the mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp after panic withdrawals by depositors led to its collapse, the third largest in US history. This comes on the back of reports that the US tax payer may have to bail out two other major mortgage lending firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (No, you read correctly, those are their real names).
This news led to a massive fall in stock market values across the world. That’s on top of the last six months losses. In many respects, the world’s financial markets are a house of cards, intricately woven strands threading through every economy. True to chaos theory’s favourite image of the flutter of a butterfly’s wings over the Azores eventually triggering a typhoon in the South China Sea, when one card dislodges, the whole lot comes tumbling down.
Since George Bush represents exactly the kind of greedy corporate capitalism that built this catastrophe, hope is fading that a Government led by him might actually be able to avert meltdown. I say hope because faith died a long while ago. And if the worst comes to the worst, it’ll be charity for everyone.
Bush, of course, also attacked Iraq, almost certainly at the behest of his past and present advisors and cronies who had major oil and construction interests. The net effect was to destabilise the Middle East much more than before and to raise oil prices through the roof.
Would this have happened anyway? Maybe. China’s phenomenal surge to first world economic status is a huge factor. And while there’s still plenty of oil there isn’t enough refining capacity. And anyway, we should be paying more for energy, just to keep us green. But the miscalculations and stupidity of the American regime, and their willingness to let rapacious bankers regulate themselves, are still major factors.
At home, the task that falls to the two Brians would test the resolve and ingenuity of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. All this and the Lisbon Treaty vote as well. They’ll remember the summer of Zero8 and no mistake…
It’s proving to be a summer of change, one of those summers where everything shifts and nothing is ever the same afterwards.
In dealing with all this, we are not helped by media hysteria and the apparent inability of so many journalists and radio researchers to actually read reports in their original forms or to process even pretty simple information. Too many internet summaries if you ask me…
For example, last week there was (yet another) radio programme shouting ‘emigration’s back, so where are the best places to go?’ as though we’re back to the early 1980s and the last one to leave should turn out the light…
But that’s not what the recent ESRI report said. It said that there would be a return of emigration of perhaps 20,000 a year. In the near future, this will be of people with construction skills to, for example, London and (ironically) Poland for the Olympics 2012 and Euro 2012 projects. But we’ll also still have immigration. We’ll still be doing a lot of what we’re doing, just differently.
One never despairs of the people, but one certainly despairs of the meeja.
But finally, let’s return to happier things, to the summer festivals again, and to Puck Fair in particular. This great pagan peasant festival remains true to the ancient feast of Lughnasa, for which we give thanks. It does so despite the disapproval of clerics and media and police. It has been so for a long time and will remain so at least while Judge James O’Connor sits as District Court Judge in Killorglin.
That’s what he said when he rejected a Garda request to curtail late night pub opening hours during the festival. For which Judge O’Connor deserves a big round of applause. Enough of the anti-fun hysteria. Times are tough. The world may be changing all around us, but as long as we keep to the fundamentals, we’ll be okay.
Besides, the Government needs the excise duty on the drink!