Impatient Irish have lost that loving feeling for others

Surly streak starting to become obvious post-Celtic Tiger

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Dublin's Grafton Street

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Many have not realised that the dream of grandeur has turned into an economic nightmare. This society has become self-centred to the extent it is a national malaise, with a whole generation trapped in a culture of entitlement.

The result is a people feeling very little responsibility towards others, save the individual self. I try not to be too critical when I see the appalling behaviour and absence of proper guidance from our compliant politicians in their craven compliance to the sinister corporate world at the expense of the people who elected them to govern on our behalf, primarily.

We are touched now with the distasteful arrogance and belligerence associated with bad leadership and the stripping away of the country’s wealth to appease the greed of the world bankers. The concept of rampant materialism is always a destructive path, yet is always persists.

An alarming number of youngsters appear confused and uncertain as to their place and status in society, especially young men, and are increasingly becoming lost in the twilight world of alcohol and drugs, too often leading to suicide when a state of mental distress becomes normal to them.

The poor are blamed for being so, and largely ignored. ’The poor will always be with us’ should not mean it is acceptable for people to have to beg on the streets and show symptoms of being socially inadequate, for them to be the victims of the oft heard fearsome catch-cry, ”something should be done about them. ”What exactly, one wonders. But we are frowned at officially if we criticise the parasitic ‘Troika’ who bleed our country dry of every cent on behalf of our international oppressors.

All is overshadowed by debt and taxes, with an unwillingless to recognise that nothing will improve economically in the coming decade.

I love Ireland, and don’t  wish to live elsewhere. There is so much to keep me here in the later years of my life, and my story in this article is just one, albeit important, aspect of today’s Ireland. I grew up here in the grey and hungry fifties when Irish parents often agonised over the problem of putting food on the table.

Those days are gone in our consciousness, and sadly replaced with fear of the future and of those who govern. This is not the way it ought to be. There are no expressions of optimism, only ‘promises’ of more austerity.

Little wonder people are angry. My problem is that such pessimism can quickly can turn to volatility or hate. It is spiralling out of control.

I’d only ask that as a society we’d recognise we’ve lost our way. We can recover on a personal level, while accepting we’re deep in this quagmire of a failed economy entity. While waiting for the miracle to come, I’m not deterred as I sally forth to snatch any bit of fun which might have my name on it.

Join me.

*Robert J. Sullivan is a writer living in Bandon, County Cork

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