Who would have thought it!

There was a time when Ireland was predictable Poor, but happy! Sinful, but discreet! Yes it was a outwardly religious country, Roman Catholic with a sprinkling of Church of Ireland. It is now a long time since the clerics ruled the roost in Ireland – Ireland proper that is, The Republic. People soon learned to worship the god of plenty. There was no way that any kind of doctrine could hold out against the doctrine of wealth and good times.

In addition, the fact that several representatives of the various churches had been forced to face their own demons and the skeletons in their own closets meant all that hyprocisy left a bad taste in people’s mouths – a case, often, of physician heal thyself! The exception was perhaps in Northern Ireland – a provincce ruled by the United Kingdom where one way or another, by mixing religion with politics, some religious leaders managed to remain relevant and vocal for a long time after the complete secularisation of the Irish Republic.

There is nothing that saps people’s resistance like deprivation, and frustration. The Ireland that I knew years ago was conservative, and puritanical – at least in the open. What went on behind closed doors was obviously between them and the priest in the confessional. But in those days people in the Republic of Ireland were regarded largely as the poor relations, with relatives abroad still sending food parcels back as though they were a starving country in Africa or Asia! Certainly my mother frequently sent what we would say in England were ‘coals to Newcastle’! I leave you to fathom that one out, but suffice it to say, Newcastle had plenty coallfields of its own!

Then they joined what was then the Common Market! Along came affluence. Everybody from the factory worker to the estate agent benefited from the Euro. The European Community was a positive boon to the formerly struggling, relatively poor, migration-dependent Emerald Isle. No longer did their young have to leave home to make money – unless they wanted to. No longer did they have to look to their nearest neighbours to the East and their preferred neighbours to the West to see the money tree: Indeed, in investment terms, with foreign factories, agricultural subsidies, a boom economy and a surge in their always healthy tourist industry, they were known as the Celtic Tiger. Inferior to nobody, superior to many

Even during ‘the troubles’ the tourist industry had not taken too big a blow. The Republic managed remarkably well to distance themselves from their noisy neighbours in the North – with the exception of course of the border counties which carried the can – and filled it sometimes – to purchase comparative ‘peace’ for the rest of the island. The Island of Ireland as it is euphamistically dubbed now. Bombs went off elsewhere, Ireland itself was comparatively safe. People do not mess in their own backyard.

But times they are a changing: The Republic in recent years has certainly gone through a turbulent economic time – as have many of the other European countries. Unlike Greece and to some extent Italy and Spain, however, they managed, through good housekeeping and a stringent fist on the purse strings to drag themselves out of the mire in a relatively short period of time. But times were hard during the retrenching years. Ireland returned to a pattern of migration with many of its sons and daughters once again taking to the planes, boats and trains as they had gone over the centuries ever since the mass migrations to the United States, Australia and England as a result of the Potato Famine..

But resilience is their middle name, and financially all is now well …… at the moment.. There is still much angst and bad feeling towards the ‘money industry’ and those that ran up massive debts during the years of plenty, but at least the country has had a salutary taste of bread and spread, after their years of oysters and champagne, which will do them no harm at all into the future. They now know that share prices can fall as well as rise.

With the new Government – a surprise for a conservative Ireland – in place, the next surprise has been the election of the new Prime Minister: Leo Varadkar’s father arrived in Ireland in the 1970s from India. Little could he have guessed that his son would one day be its Prime Minister. But Leo Varadkar is no ordinary Irishman of Indian extraction: He is a doctor which is not unusual. But he is also an openly gay man, which for what was a puritanical, hyper-religious country, steeped in ‘no-nos’ not so many years ago, is truly remarkable.

It was only a relatively few years ago that divorce was recognised – as late as 1996! Abortion is still illegal unless it is the result of medical intervention; contraception was legalised for sale as late as 1987. Ireland was not a liberal country – even without the reins of Holy Mother the Church of Rome. And now they have a mixed race, openly gay Prime Minister. Hallelujah!

For those who always believe that there is no flowers without rain, I have to admit that they could be right! Despite the soundness of Leo Varadkar’s credentials, he is fundamentally a fairly right-wing Conservative.

The clouds are gathering too because theUnited Kingdom Conservative party with a very slender majority in the House of Commons, needs ‘friends’ in order to outnumber the combined opposition forces. They are looking to the 10 elected Right-wing Protestant, anti-Republican Democratic Unionist Party members representing constituencies in Northern Ireland to form an alliance to bridge this gap. Leo Vardarkar has already warned the UK Government – as have the other non DUP membeers of the Northern Irish Stormont Government itself that this breaks what was called the Good Friday Agreement. The Government of the UK is required, by that agreement, to be impartial. They obviously cannot be impartial if they are climbing into bed with one wing of the Stormont Government. There are fears that dissident members of dormant factions within Northern Ireland will gratefully accept the invitation to return to hostilities once again. Currently the UK, like the rest of the world, has enough concern with other terrorist groups, and can well do without a renewed wage of shots across the bows from the lunatic fringes – of either persuasion. As we all know there is always somebody ready to fill a vaccuum!

I would have liked to have said, following the election of Leo Varadkar, that the sun is in its heaven, and all is right with the world!. But truthfully, I am no longer sure. The Governments of both countries have a third phantom at the feast …. and that phantom is somewhat difficult to control or predict.

Anything that puts the pollitical scene in Northern Ireland out of kilter is bad news for all countries: The Republic, the United Kingdom and the Province of Ulster. The world has enough to police at present without Governments going out of their way to jeopardise currently stable, but volatile, situations.