An American in Ireland
by The YankRSS 
Recent Posts
- Ireland as Britain's wind farm - weighing up the pros and cons of ugly and heavily subsized Irish windfarms
- Justin Bieber's perfectly judged comment on Anne Frank - "Hopefully she would have been a belieber"
- The Irish property tax problem - everyone wants to own some and no one wants to be taxed on it
- American fans right to ignore the World Baseball Classic
- Will Ireland's emigrants catch a break on property tax?
Archives
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the story of Halloween's origins is EVERYWHERE this year, which means that just about
Naas, County Kildare is going to honor the county's native son John Devoy with a statue. All I can say is that it's about time Devoy got some acknowledgment.
Devoy is one of the giants of Ireland's long struggle for national independence. Yet he is almost completely unknown here, which is par for the course when it comes to Irish-America. {You can get some idea of how forgotten Devoy is here from the local Kildare paper, which
What is wrong with English soccer players, their clubs and the people who run them? And what about British television channels? Don't they know
In 1800 the Irish parliament voted to accept union with Great Britain, a move which was an economic disaster that snuffed out a burgeoning economy, led to decline, de-industrialization and, eventually, a disastrous famine that killed a million people and drove more than that out of the country. A complete catastrophe unrivaled in Irish history. If anything comes close, it was 1992.
In 1992 the people of Ireland voted to accept the Maastricht Treaty, an arcane document that few voters really understood. It committed Ireland to joining a single European currency, but the pluses and minuses of such a decision were never even considered in the run-up to the referendum.
The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Albert Reynolds sold the amended European Union treaty on the basis that we would get billions of dollars in aid and there would be no impact on our laws banning abortion. The only references made to the pending currency union were about how we'd enjoy the same low interest rates as the Germans. There was zero debate on the merits of joining a currency dominated by countries that, combined, accounted for about a third of Ireland's trade.
Bankers' hours. It was a phrase I was familiar with before I moved here, but I didn't quite understand it until I arrived in Ireland.
I had worked in a bank as a teller in Albany during the summer when I was in college. The bank opened at 9am and closed at 4:00. After closing the staff had to check their figures and paperwork and count the cash in their drawers which meant it was usually after 4:30 at the earliest before anyone left. Twice a week, however, we had 'late hours' when the bank reopened at 5pm for two hours. And the bank was open from 9 – 1 on Saturday mornings.
All in all, I never had the feeling that the people working there were under-worked. They sure as heck weren't underpaid as the rates of pay were pretty abysmal for tellers and the branch manager alike. {I'm not talking about me here. My parents were still housing, feeding and clothing me; I didn't
Ireland's winters and summers will get warmer thanks to climate change, according to a report
Twice in a few days Irish television has snubbed Troy, NY. Twice! And, let's face it, Troy doesn't exactly get a lot of opportunities to be featured in the media outside of newspaper and television reports in and around Albany.
Early 20th Century Irish revolutionary James Connolly was the topic of both programs. In each case the producers traveled to New York cover the time Connolly lived and worked in America. Connolly spent about seven years in America, mostly in and around New York, but he lived in Troy from 1903 to 1905.
The Ryder Cup teed off this morning and, well, I don't care. It's probably more than not caring because I actively dislike the Ryder Cup. To me it's an event that is built solely on hype and a ludicrous battle between American chauvinism and anti-Americanism.
The ridiculous, over the top, embarrassing nationalistic displays and language used by the American team is intended to lure Americans into rooting for the team (and helpfully boost the TV ratings) because it's "America vs Europe." Despite these efforts, from what I can make out taking American newspaper sports sections and web sites as a guide, American interest in the event is not great.
Over here it's a huge deal. I don't know if people in Germany, Spain or France care about the Ryder Cup, but in Ireland and in Britain this is one massive event.
