Changes
By Frank Shouldice
The country has changed more in the past two decades than in
the 83 years since its independence from Britain.
In eleven years we will reach the centenary of the 1916 Rising, the revolutionary
crucible of present-day Ireland. Independence did not arrive until 1922
— along with partition and the seeds of Northern conflict —
but at this stage we are at least four generations into modern statehood.
Shouldn’t 83 years be long enough for us to know where we are and,
even possibly, where we’re going?
We’re no different from other countries insofar as Ireland is constantly
evolving as a nation. Unlike most countries however, what’s happening
right now represents the most significant transformation since Irish independence.
If you want to get a handle on where things stand, you could probably squeeze
the last century into the past twenty years. It’s been that dramatic.
And if you don’t believe me, the next time you visit you’ll
see for yourself.
At 42 years of age the past two decades bisect my own life, about five years
of which passed memorably in New York. I left Dublin in the mid-1980s, a
time when there was nothing new about going away. A lack of work prospects
maintained a pattern that was well established since the 1950s. People continued
to leave in droves through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, bearing
one-way tickets bound for Britain, for America or for Australia. Some came
back but many didn’t. What was there to come back for? Ireland was
one of the poorest countries in Europe and there was no sign of a turnaround.
Even when I came back to Dublin in 1992 there wasn’t a hint of
the sea change that was about to take place. Where did we stand back then?
People were still leaving in their thousands. Many pinned their hopes
of emigrating to the U.S. on the Donnelly and Morrison visa lottery programs
of the ’80s and ’90s. But for many Irish, Continental Europe
began to look more inviting if the obstacles of a second language could
be overcome. At home, unemployment remained high and optimism ebbed low.
The outlook was bleak, a forecast for more of the same.
At a cultural level we struggled to put a stamp on our national identity.
Our definition of being Irish still revolved around stating that we were
not British. We found it easier to say what we were not than to settle for
what we were. The virtual loss of our own language did not help. We were
entrenched in history and firmly tied to the Troubles, even if the daily
realities of the North had become far more remote to the South than the
100 miles from Belfast to Dublin.
It’s asking a lot of artists, entertainers and sports stars to assume
the role of cultural ambassadors, but we needed all of them to break new
ground and to provide a more contemporary version of Ireland than Joyce,
Beckett, Wilde, Shaw (all of whom, conspicuously enough, had left home shores,
never to return).
International successes like U2 and Guinness afforded us catch-phrase reference
points. In 1990, for the first time ever, a Republic of Ireland soccer team
qualified for the World Cup in 1990 -– the Northern Ireland team had
already done so on three occasions. Factors like these might seem unimportant
but they underline how ill-defined we were as a nation and how low our profile
was abroad.
When Ukraine won the much-maligned Eurovision Song Contest last year
we could understand their delight as a matter of international recognition.
We’ve been there ourselves (seven times), but thankfully we’re
moving on. Other achievements, like the Academy Award-winning My Left
Foot, and Tony Award-winning Dancing at Lughnasa, bespoke a newer domestic
confidence.
But a modern identity would have floundered without an improved economic
picture. That transformation has been hackneyed into shorthand as “The
Celtic Tiger.” Coinciding with the dot.com period, it took a major
shift in Irish industry– away from agriculture and into telecommunications
and pharmaceuticals. Thanks to remarkable success in attracting investment
from overseas –- mostly from the U.S. — growth in the telecom
and computer-related sector created opportunities for an educated workforce
through the late 1980s and early ’90s. And through that time EU development
funds were made available to begin a major overhaul of a national infrastructure
that was archaic by European standards.
The immediate impact was to slash unemployment and reduce emigration.
Most of the jobs were created in the greater Dublin area -– and
to a lesser extent Galway, Athlone, Limerick, Cork -– so that an
increasingly mobile workforce tilted the demographic spread decisively
eastward to the capital.
Buoyed by an economic revival, government borrowing dropped, cutting bank
interest rates from crippling highs to record lows. This prompted corresponding
booms in the property market and construction. The peace dividend in Northern
Ireland, however tenuous, lent stability to the island as a place to reside
or invest.
In a matter of years the Republic became a place to stay rather than a place
to leave. Budget airlines made travel easy and affordable, making the country
less isolated than before. By the late ’90s thousands of emigrant
families were coming back to settle permanently. They brought back a different
outlook, life experience from abroad and a realization that Ireland is not
the center of the globe.
They also brought their life savings with them. For a country perilously
close to bankruptcy in the 1970s, there has never been so much money in
circulation. Living standards have risen, but the cost of living -–
especially housing –- bears no relation to the 1980s. After years
of receiving EU assistance, Ireland is now a net contributor to EU funds.
Economically, it seems we have turned the corner.
Yet the economic revival masks other concerns and confusions. The virtual
implosion of the Catholic Church has removed a traditional pillar from Irish
society. For a country supposedly comprising 90 percent Catholic citizens
–- the figure is farcically inaccurate -– the question is not
whether the Catholic Church still has influence but what has replaced it.
This is plainly obvious, but not everybody is ready to accept it.
For instance, media coverage of public reaction here to the passing of Pope
John Paul II was massively exaggerated. It suggested, wrongly, that “young
people of Ireland” –- as the Pontiff addressed them on his visit
here in 1979 — were as committed to the Church as previous generations.
The fact is that Pope John Paul II presided over a conservative Vatican
so out of touch with Ireland’s changing society that had he returned
a second time he might not have recognized the place.
For the Church to collapse at a time of increased wealth means we have become
as materialist as any secular country in the world. The term “Celtic
Tiger” also covers up a shocking polarization between rich and poor.
It is a mystery quite how economic statistics are arrived at, but for thousands
of our poor and homeless, the notion that Ireland now ranks alongside Switzerland
and Sweden as one of the world’s wealthiest nations is worse than
a bad dream. We may never have seen so many brand new deluxe cars on our
clogged-up roads, but the rising tide does not lift all boats. Poverty has
not disappeared. It’s just we don’t notice it any more.
This has all happened so quickly that it feels like generation gaps are
getting shorter. The spectre of unemployment — almost a given in the
1980s — is an unknown quantity to present-day school leavers. Contrasting
then and now is to sound like their grandfather. How strange it is to think
we’re still talking just twenty years ago.
Recent visits to Glasgow and Bucharest reminded me of Dublin during the
recession — Glasgow for its dilapidation and Bucharest for its disillusionment.
What struck me particularly about Romania was that most engineering and
medical graduates emigrate as soon as they qualify. In Ireland we used to
call it “the brain drain.” The phrase hardly did justice to
those who remained behind, but such an educational diaspora is deeply destructive
to any emerging nation.
Significantly, there is now a net inflow of people to Ireland for the
first time in our history. Our industrial growth demands a fresh workforce,
and because Irish family sizes have declined, we need the immigrants who
come here. This is a multicultural society, yet we still consider ourselves
a homogenous people. Our national confidence has not yet found a way to
integrate expanding Chinese, Polish, Nigerian, Romanian, Lithuanian, Russian,
Latvian and Indian communities. In the past, Irish people abroad have
been confronted by racism; now that we are a “host nation”
we need to put that bitter experience to better use.
How much is this country going to change? Who knows? Anglo-American influences
are so pervasive that you might occasionally wonder if we are the 51st state
or a regional audience for the BBC. We do fit more comfortably into the
modern world, and if there is a price, it’s that we have become less
unique. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Either way, it’s
a difficult balancing act for an island people. We’ve seen it happen
at a micro level on the Irish-speaking islands off the west coast, but at
national level, the global village is our live-in neighbor.
More than any other time in the past hundred years, the last two decades
provided the greatest spark and the greatest challenge. If we want to be
a modern nation, how true can we stay to tradition? Therein lies the tension
and the dynamic. The country is not quite a century old, but the current
phase of development demands we find a way to negotiate our past and present
and locate our island culture on the world stage. Either way, interesting
times ahead. |
