not your pappy's Eire

St. Patrick's Day is almost over. I've had my token bottle of Harp to celebrate. (And to get me through income taxes. Yeesh.)

I've been to Ireland once, in 1989. If you've never been there—or if your last visit was as long ago as mine—chances are that most of what you thought you knew about the Irish is no longer true. Whatever the faults of the EU may be (and there are many), there is no doubt that membership has been very, very good for the Republic. The “Celtic Tiger” has the most robust economy in Europe, except possibly for Spain (and we will see just how long it takes the socialists to run that country into the ground).

But such change comes with a price. Here's National Review's John Derbyshire, from two years ago.

Cconsider some of the great issues that form the substance of serious conversation among thoughtful Americans nowadays. Terrorism vs. civil society; “diversity” vs. monoculturalism; race and identity; the place of religion in a hedonistic popular culture; the future of nationhood in a globalizing world economy. You want to talk about these things? Go to Ireland, where they are all in active play. At this point in history, Almighty God, following his own unfathomable intentions, has chosen a small windswept patch of boggy turf in the North Atlantic as a test site for the next few decades of human development. Whether this attention is something the Irish people should feel flattered by, or cursed by, is for them to tell you. […]

The old joke about Ireland is: “Every time the British think they have found an answer to the Irish Question, the Irish change the question.” The Irish have been changing a lot of questions recently, and indeed adding some new ones. Apropos the position of the Catholic Church in Ireland, an Irish friend remarked to me recently that: “The process of secularization, which in England took 150 years, we have gone through in 15.” The drowsing, timeless, poverty-stricken, myth-haunted villages of the Gaeltacht (i.e. Irish-speaking areas), the kind of place satirized in Flann O'Brien's The Poor Mouth, now have four-lane highways, yacht marinas and hacienda-style condo blocks full of German tourists. […]

“All changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born,” remarked Yeats at the time of the Easter Rising. What has actually been born in Ireland during this past 20 years has been a modern, secular, hedonistic welfare state with a globalized economy, a Marxified Academy, a crime problem, a drug problem, an immigration problem and a terrorist problem. Is that terrible? Or beautiful? Your answer is probably a good indicator as to whether or not you are going to enjoy the first half of the 21st century.

There is a lot in Derb's column to ponder. But it is late tonight, so let's just momentarily consider the “immigration problem,” which no longer means the exodus of young people away from the Republic. The thriving economy instead has brought an influx from the rest of Europe and beyond. For the first time, the Irish must come to terms with a multiculturalism that involves more than just dealing with the Protestant Orangemen of the north.

On a recent visit to Ireland, I was caught off-guard by a Dublin taxi driver who inveighed against the current wave of new immigrants. Vainly scrutinizing the streets for a face, complexion, or manner of dress that might stand out among the crowd thronging O’Connell Street, I finally asked whom he had in mind. “The Dutch!” he expostulated.

I am a fan of economic globalization, as one of the most liberating forces in our civilization. But it would be a sad day indeed if countries such as Ireland were ever to forget their distinctive character.

I apologize ahead of time for the extraneous details.

A mere single bottle of Harp!?! Let's see...3 Pyramid Pale Ale's...2 Pyramid Apricot Ales...a few Beamish Stouts...1 Fullsail and 2 Fat Tires.

Peter,

And you could still type straight? I"m impressed.

I'm holding off on that sort of celebration until November 2, when I get my own growler of Amber Ale from Lennie's to celebrate W's second term.

Thinking positive, you know...