An American in Ireland

It's not quite as tough as

Starting next week anyone wanting to get a driver's license in Ireland will have to prove that they've undergone 12 hours of

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time Ireland 'sprang ahead' over the weekend and reestablished the five hour lead over the east coast of America. Couldn't have you catching up, could we?

Now the sun sets an hour later, which is a good thing. Right?

It's particularly good if you're coming to Ireland during the summer. On those occasions when I've been traveling around Ireland during the summer months I've always loved how it's daylight to 10pm or later. I have clear memories of one weekend at a friend's house in Kerry when I was a student and really loving the evening sun at 10:30 at night. No better place on Earth.

Despite living in Ireland for 20 years, despite being Irish on both sides of my family, despite being married to an Irish woman and having Irish children and Irish in-laws and Irish friends, despite all that and more there are times when I'm completely dumbfounded by the Irish people. This is one of them.

Now first I should say that it may be that I'm misinterpreting the excessive focus of the Irish media and Irish Twitter users on the report of the Moriarty Tribunal. Yes, that again.

I hope I'm wrong and that the average Irish person is not really that exercised by the report's publication. I'd actually like to believe that for most people a bad result in Ireland's soccer game with Macedonia tomorrow night will actually cause them more distress. I hope that's how it is.

There is a

The Moriarty Tribunal report into corruption in Irish political life was published today. The Tribunal has spent 14 years to get today's publication day, 14 years and somewhere between €100-150m (that's $140-210m). And for all that money the Irish taxpayer got ...

Nothing. There will be no prosecutions because the report "has no legal standing."

It all started just around the inauguration in 2009. Maybe it was before that. Election Day? I can't quite remember now, but it was around that time. Before Barak Obama became President of the United States the people of this state were united, beautifully so.

There had been some straws in the wind even before the election, but once it was clear that Barack Obama was going to be President the real fight started. Neighbor turned on neighbor, brother on brother.

I had never even heard of Moneygall before Obama came along. Why would I have? I'm sure I've driven through it on my way to Limerick, but 300 people live there. It made no impression. Believe me, I wasn't the only one in Ireland who had never heard of Moneygall before.

It's March 17 and that can mean only one thing. People have been waiting for this day all over Ireland and in America too, of course. Yes, it's time for March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament.

Okay, that's a lie. There is virtually no interest in the NCAA Tournament in Ireland. Basketball is a popular game to play here and there are some NBA fans in the country, but interest in the college game is limited to Americans who live here and those Irish people who spent years living stateside, especially if some of that time was spent in college. Maybe now thanks to digital television - ESPN America in particular - more Irish people will be drawn to the great spectacle that is the NCAA Tournament.

It's always easy to be cynical and believe me I can be good at it. So when I saw on Twitter (#IrishMinuteStand) that some people were trying to

I was all set to wax lyrical on Ireland's big victory yesterday and simultaneously impress you with my encyclopedic knowledge of cricket. I was ready to put it all in context comparing yesterday's win over England with the 1980 US Olympic hockey team's victory against the USSR.

Unfortunately, two things conspired to stop me. First, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of cricket, although I was almost able to explain a 'yorker' to my daughter last night, which impressed her no end. {Cricket has an amazing language all its own. You can get a sense of that here.}

So the election is over. There is a great amount of self-congratulatory comment about how the election was a