An American in Ireland

Right smack in the middle of Ireland's jaw-droppingly doom-laden last couple of weeks there were a series of events organized by the Irish Technology Leadership Group. The ITLG is a non-profit organization of Irish and Irish-American Silicon Valley leaders whose objective is to foster links between Ireland and Silicon Valley that will help generate high-tech success stories for Ireland.

To make this happen the ITLG assists Irish companies with marketing, fund-raising, developing strategic partnerships and other key commercial tasks. In addition, the ITLG opened the Irish Innovation Center in San Jose. The IIC, which opened in March, affords Irish start-ups a space in Silicon Valley, from where they can establish links that will provide these Irish companies with access to technology and connections that are vital for technology businesses today.

The other thing the ITLG can provide is optimism. ITLG President John Hartnett, in particular, just oozes optimism. Hartnett bubbles over with excitement when he gets going.

My first Thanksgiving in Ireland was in 1986 and I was invited to the American Ambassador's residence on the big day.

Okay, I wasn't invited personally. The Ambassador's invite was for all American students studying at Trinity College, where I was putting in a year. My friend John, a fellow American, and I made our way up there hoping we'd get a decent bit of food. We weren't expecting to sit down to a beautifully laid table with linen table cloth and finest silverware, but we did hope we'd get some form buffet-style turkey dinner served on paper plates. Turkey sandwiches at worse.

Upon arrival we were provided with a can of Budweiser and a bag of potato chips. Not quite traditional, but a pleasant start. We were treated to a short speech by the Ambassador Margaret Heckler {photo}, who seemed to expect us to be in awe because the house was once the residence of Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston's father. "Can't you just image little Winston crawling along these floors." No. All we could imagine was food.

I met a friend of mine from America here early last week and he asked me to give him two minutes on the state of Ireland. I told him I didn't need two minutes: The young want out, the old are afraid of cuts and the middle aged are looking at a retirementless, childless future.

That was my assessment of mood of the country before we were forced to accept the IMF/EU bailout over the weekend. I think I can safely say the mood has not improved. In fact, if anything the mood has darkened, grown angrier and the focus of that anger is the government, which is now on its last legs.

There are a million reasons for the Irish people to be disgusted with their leaders, but this past week takes the cake. All week the government denied that the IMF was at the door - even denying what was happening after the IMF man arrived in the country!

As I'm sure you know, it's Thanksgiving next week. Despite the fact it's not a holiday in Ireland, my family always celebrates. We usually try to have the big feast on the actual day, but there have been times in the past when we've had to do as other Americans here do and move the festivities to Saturday. Unfortunately, this year neither is possible.

This year we will have to have our Thanksgiving Day this coming Wednesday, which means I'll be eating a leftover turkey sandwich for lunch on Thursday before you've even finished watching the big parade on Broadway.

Why do we have to move our holiday? My daughter is in the school musical this year – Fiddler on the Roof – and her school inconsiderately scheduled the show to run for four days starting next Thursday.

It's almost impossible to convey how gloomy life in Ireland is this week. Tuesday was the worst because the imminent national economic collapse had to share the headlines with Doom and gloom is everywhere – everywhere except the American embassy in Dublin. Believe me I don't want to make a big deal out of this because it's not a big deal. It's a small deal and it has to do with Twitter.

The American embassy has a twitter account (@usembassydublin). I thought they'd abandoned it because it went silent in June. Silent until it sparked to life again on Tuesday. Since then the embassy has posted four tweets:

1. Press briefing by President #Obama Aboard Air Force One: "We are going to have to step up our game." {Nov 16}
2. Americans help rebuild #Haiti #libraries. {Nov 16}
3. International enrollment in U.S. colleges reaches all-time high. {Nov 17}

Rory McIlroy is

The first click of the day was on a story that turned out to be about the Edmund Fitzgerald,

The position of Chief Secretary for Ireland was abolished following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From that moment Ireland has had varying degrees of independence, but it was basically independent. Until now.

There can be no more argument on the matter. Many people have claimed with each new European Union treaty that Ireland was no longer an independent nation, that we were just a state in a vast European federal union. Others argued otherwise and it is, or was, a complex matter.

However, this week all pretense of independence evaporated as the Irish people got to meet our new Chief Secretary, Olli Rehn {photo}. Unlike the last Chief Secretary, Canadian Rehn Rehn helpfully offered the support of the European Commission to "Ireland and its citizens as they faced into the challenges ahead," but he offered nothing else other than "thou shalt comply" and get the deficit under 3% by 2014.

I never thought about it on Wednesday, but apparently using the word "shellacking" as President Obama did on Wednesday is an Americanism. There's been a lot of comment about it England.

Like most commentators, the Daily Telegraph's

Some headlines write themselves. This morning the Irish government's Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith announced that the government will soon be distributing 58 tons of cheese to poor people. It was only yesterday that Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen told the nation that the budget due December 7 – a date that already lives in infamy – will include massive cuts in government spending and significant new taxes.

To say that the cheese announcement from our tone-deaf, out-of-touch government was badly timed is understating things. Every radio station, news web site and especially twitter ran wild with puns and cheese-inspired slights aimed at the government. Of course, poor ol maligned (&

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