Ireland

Responding to this New York Times piece on Ireland’s ecoomic woes Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum and Steve Benen echo Paul Krugman and say: See, this just shows how stupid austerity measures are. And it’s true, Ireland really is in a terrible hole and won’t be getting out of it any time soon. As the article puts it: Nearly two years ago, an economic collapse forced Ireland to cut public spending and raise taxes, the type of austerity measures that financial markets are now pressing on most advanced industrial nations. “When our public finance situation blew wide open, the dominant consideration was ensuring that there was international investor confidence

Congratulations to the subs at the Evening Herald in Dublin for this gem:

I suppose that relatively few people in England knew Alan Ruddock, who died from a heart attack on Sunday aged just 49, but in Scottish and Irish journalistic circles he was a considerable figure. As Kevin Myers reminds us, he defied the IRA as editor of the Sunday Times’s Irish edition. Later, as Stewart Kirkpatrick remembers, he was a very fine editor of the Scotsman, presiding over the paper and its coverage of the first elections to the new Scottish parliament in 1999. Later still, and foolishly, the Irish Times declined to give Alan the chance to edit the old lady of d’Olier St. Their loss. Instead he wrote a

An eyebrow-raising passage from the Pope’s letter to the Irish church: In recent decades, however, the Church in your country has had to confront new and serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid transformation and secularization of Irish society. Fast-paced social change has occurred, often adversely affecting people’s traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values. All too often, the sacramental and devotional practices that sustain faith and enable it to grow, such as frequent confession, daily prayer and annual retreats, were neglected. Significant too was the tendency during this period, also on the part of priests and religious, to adopt ways of thinking and assessing secular realities without

Frankly, one would be disappointed if this sort of caper weren’t being run in Donegal: A 72-year-old Donegal man who denied running an illegal public bar in his shed, has been acquitted of two charges brought against him by the County Council under planning regulations. Patsy Brogan said the bar, which has become known as The Bog Hotel near Frosses, is for private use, and while he welcomes callers, he insists he does not charge for drink. At Donegal District Court today Judge Kevin Kilraine said there was no evidence anybody was being charged money at the bar. He said the shed had been converted to look like a bar

Everyone always says that there’s no english equivalent of schadenfreude and I’ve always assumed, recklessly as it turns out, that since everyone always says this it might be true. Not so! Hats-off to Mr Ciaran J Breen of Celbridge, County Kildare for writing to the Irish Times to explain that: But there is a one-word English equivalent. It is “epicaricacy” which means rejoicing at, taking fun in, or getting pleasure from the misfortune of others. The word is derived from the ancient Greek “epi” (meaning upon); “kharis” (meaning joy) and “kakos” (meaning evil). The German language equivalent, Schadenfreude, is more commonly used as a loan word in English. – Yours,

The least surprising thing about the latest revelations of the Irish Catholic Church’s complicity in thousands of cases of horrific child abuse is that almost none of it is surprising at all. Shocking, yes, but not surprising. Even those of us with an appropriately cynical view of the Chuch, mind you, can only marvel at the breathtaking mendacity displayed by the Church. The Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, says he is ” mindful of the perceived hollowness of repeated apologies” and he has a point. Because until they were caught, the Church displayed no remorse whatsoever. Time and time again, as the Murphy Commission’s report makes only too clear, the