O SUCESSO IRLANDÊS (II)

(ou o JMF vai ficar outra vez furioso com os comunas do "NYT")

"There’s no great mystery about why they’re going: They don’t believe in the success story. A major study by University College Cork found that most of the emigrants are graduates and that almost half of them left full-time jobs in Ireland to go abroad. These are not desperate refugees; they’re bright young people who have lost faith in the idea that Ireland can give them the opportunities they want. They just don’t buy into the narrative of a triumphant rebound.

 

 (...) Irish people were prepared to take some punishment; there’s enough Catholic guilt still around for a story of sin and atonement to have considerable psychological purchase. People do look back ruefully on the Celtic Tiger years and admit that we deserved a whipping for thinking we could get rich by selling one another million-dollar houses. But they are not convinced that the cruel scale of the punishment was necessary or that the nasty medicine has, in fact, worked. (...)

 

But the river has not been redirected: A torrent of debt continues to flow from the catastrophic decision to save bad banks at all costs. Hopes that Ireland’s debts might be alleviated by its European partners in recognition of the country’s role in saving the euro are now fading. Little Ireland took one for the team. In return, it gets a pat on the head and the dubious pleasure of being called a success story. (...) In this, Ireland may be a model indeed: suffering to maintain an unreal image of slimmed-down perfection" (aqui)

The Wolfe Tones - "Flight Of Earls"

I can hear the bells of Dublin
In this lonely waiting room
And the paperboys are singin'
In the rain
Not too long be fore they take us
To the airport and the noise
To get on board
A transatlantic plane
We've got nothin' left to stay for,
We had no more left to say
And there isn't any work for us to do
So fare well ye boys and girls,
Another bloody Flight of Earls
Our best asset is our best export, too

It's not murder, fear or famine
That makes us leave this time
We're not going to join
McAlpine's Fusileers
We've got brains, and we've got visions,
We've got education, too!
But we just can't throw away
These precious years
So we walk the streets of London,
And the streets of Baltimore
And we meet at night
In several Boston bars
We're the leaders of the future
But we're far away from home
And we dream of you
Beneath the Irish stars

As we look on Ellis Island,
And the Lady in the bay
And Manhattan turns to face
Another Sunday
We just wonder what you're doing
To bring us all back home
As we look forward to another Monday
Because it's not the work
That scares us
We don't mind an honest job
And we know things will get better
Once again
So a thousand times adieu,
We've got Bono and U2
All we're missin'
Is the Guinness, and the rain

So switch off your new computers
'Cause the writing's on the wall
We're leaving as our fathers did before
Take a look at Dublin airport,
Or the boat that leaves North Wall
There'll be no Youth Unemployment
Any more
Because we're over here in Queensland,
And in parts of New South Wales
We're on the seas and airways
And the trains
But if we see better days,
Those big airplanes go both ways
And we'll all be comin' back to you again!