Over a decade ago, after attending in Killarney, County Kerry, one of the most enjoyable weekend festivals, I’d say, I have ever experienced, I was making my way home in a car with a friend who happened to be prone to spontaneous and typically mad notions. This was one of those occasions he decided to have a typically mad notion and so, despite the concert being concluded, he declared he wanted to prolong our sense of satisfaction by taking a detour through Co. Mayo. And so it was, as we trudged along in his little red 1990s Ford Focus he announced his intention by stating “we’ll head this way” and instead of turning right, he turned left.
Predictably, I enquired “What? What are you on about?”
He repeated, “We’ll head up this way, see what happens.”
“Are ye wise?” says I.
“Sure why not, it’ll be a bit of craic” says he.
“Where’re ye going anyway, what about heading this way” says I.
“Ach sure we’ll know when we get there” says he.
“Fair enough” says I and off we went, on his compass, somewhere into the middle of “God knows where”. On the way, every now and then, I’d repeat my earlier enquiry “Do ye know where you’re for yet?”
“Ach sure we’ll know when we get there” says he.
“Fair enough” says I and this went on until get there we did and there turned out to be a wee pub in Ballyhaunis where we had ourselves a couple of pints of Guinness and a “feed of chips”. And sure what would be wrong with it says I?
Nothing at all, I suppose, except for the point I’m about to attempt here today.
Ireland, like most of the world, suffers from a unique form of multiple personality disorder. We vote in our politicians years after years to represent us for a variety of reasons and each set of politicians comes together with a nice, neat and well packaged manifesto to let us know their vision for the future and how they are the boys to get us there. You’ll get a knock on the door with a big smile and a handshake and if you turn the television on, at all, those same faces are there, smiles in hands and hands in hands, as they tell us the best way to fix our country.
Now this would be all well and good if one element of the equation was not missing. What is missing? Well, what is missing is the actual ‘fixing’ of the country. The country never actually gets fixed. Yes, we can change our mind and vote in the next man or next party but no matter how many years we vote in or revote in the same faces and the same parties we never end up anywhere significant. The people see this, I see this, the whole country sees this but yet we continue to choose the same people with the same tired boring rhetoric. These men all tell us what they want to change but they don’t seem to know what the country should look like if it were to become a good place to live. Here is one example of how ridiculous the whole thing is:
Taxes in Ireland have rocketed out of orbit. Not only are those few people with a job taxed to poverty but also we are taxed for fuel, cigarettes, property, cars, soon to be water, and plastic bags. More and more money comes out of our pockets while politicians vote themselves pay raises frequently and without apology or even guilt, I surmise. Now of course some might argue these taxes are necessary for good things to be provided. However, we are sure to find most people agree that the state of education and healthcare is not improving to any serious degree, our young people are still emigrating to find jobs and the welfare state is growing while less people are working to support it. These are only some of the small issues we can all agree are bad things. It is enough to drive you to drink but, of course, we can do little of that because the drink is taxed to the roof as well.
Why do things not get better? What is wrong with the situation that prevents us from initiating the action that could set our lives back on the course to good? Do things have to become so bad before we rebel? We moved to kick the British off our soil on multiple occasions, yet we allow our politicians to remain in positions of power that, in turn, appear to keep us in positions of economic slavery.
So you see, it is just like my friend in the car on the way to “God knows where”. Our politicians give us nice big promises with smiles and handshakes and we are supposed to accept that their plan is the way to a better place. However, we have no agreement about what a better place looks like.
The whole point of this article is to argue that we first need to agree on what an ideal country looks like. If we do not know what a good or right society looks like, then how can we possibly head toward it and how can our politicians possibly know the direction to it? It is simple. We need to know what a right, good society is before we make our journey towards something, and end up instead in another pub, drinking another pint of Guinness and eating another plate of chips. It might be very cozy in that pub, but it is not the place we should be and it certainly is not the place we want to be.
When the Black and Tans were rampaging our land, terrorizing and killing our men, women and children we knew something was very wrong. We wanted to just be left alone in peace to be free and grow our families as we seen fit. Maybe today we are being terrorized in a very different way? By men who smile and shake your hand and say everything will be okay down the road, but when we ask them what place we are going to, their thought is “Ach sure we’ll know when we get there”. Maybe it is time these men and their parties and their big government ideas left us in peace and freedom to grow our families as we see fit? Sure isn’t that the real strength of Ireland?
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