crushing

Seanie Fitzpatrick’s (former chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, compulsive risk taker and, some say, chief architect of our economic collapse) BMW which was repossessed by the state and sold on Ebay is being symbolically crushed this Friday, Election Day.

Proceeds will go to the Samaritans.

Last June I got that call.

‘Meet me in the ClareGalway hotel for a coffee’

It was my cheery boss.

When I arrived he was sitting in the lobby nervously tapping on his Blackberry, hair gelled, trendy designer shirt casually unbuttoned, expensive distressed jeans, pointy brown shoes (the ‘I am really your friend’ style of management).

He took in a big breath:

‘Mary we are going to have to let you go…’

He then looked at me sideways for a few seconds to see if I was going to cry.

I didn’t, he let out a sigh of relief and gave me a big hug.

Another one bites the dust.

My initial reaction was guilty glee at the prospect of the summer ahead not glued to my laptop and mobile phone; the scary bank balance didn’t really feature at that stage.

My husband’s business, which relied on the construction industry, also folded. He got a job in his original capacity, mechanic. He now leaves home at 7, drives for an hour, lies on a cold concrete shed floor under a JCB or other large machine for 8 hours and gets home at half 6 with hands stained permanently black from oil and a sore back.

He is happy to have the work, and so am I.

I am grateful for a lot of things, we are all healthy, the children are living in a happy bubble and we are not going to emigrate.

I have done all the free things advised to keep the unemployed happy:

• I have taken up running.
• I have volunteered for a part time unpaid job.
• I have applied for a government funded evening course.
• I have had taken up a (free) hobby.
• I have kept in touch with friends.

And whatever criticisms people have about facebook it is a form of social contact that does not require you to buy a cup of coffee.

Most of the time my spirits are high but the general countrywide malaise does encroach on me. At 7 in the morning, when I have to press the repeat button and do all the things that I failed to complete yesterday, my legs get really heavy and lazy and start arguing with my head:

‘Stay in bed…why bother getting up...you have no target to meet…you will only have to do this again tomorrow’

While my head is saying:

‘Come on, a new day, make the lunches, tidy the kitchen, go for a run’.

The head wins but the legs are putting up a better fight every day.

My situation is mild compared to many but it gives me an insight into that crushing feeling of hopelessness.

It is clear that the Samaritans need all the donations they can get.

We are all hoping Enda Kenny is going to pull a fat rabbit out of his hat next week.

Lipstick

Valentines night and after a couple of glasses of red wine I managed to focus my eyes for the romantic ‘5 way leaders’ debate’ on TV.

The first audience question was unsurprisingly about emigration and jobs. It set the tone to deadly serious as the respectable, grey haired gentlemen could not get out the words as he fought back the tears explaining where his three children had emigrated to. No more Saturday morning fry ups.

Enda Kenny participated and because Fine Gael are so strong he wasn’t under any pressure to ‘win’, just to avoid a big slip up. His confidence must have been boosted exponentially earlier in the day when Micheál Martin, leader of Fianna Fáil made one of those ‘please say it was only a dream’ statements on a par with the Obama Special Olympics baseball embarrassment.

He impersonated a Chinese person at a technology conference yesterday stating the Chinese opinion of Irish IT skills was:

‘You Irish vely good at software.’

Having conducted himself with impressive decorum considering the anger and hatred directed at himself and his party he managed to commit political suicide and offend 1.3 billion people in 2 seconds.

Enda Kenny must have shouted BINGO!

The party spin doctors had obviously been on the same website, ascribing to the well known psychological ‘red tie trick’-red tie matches red mouth and improves receptivity to advertising…

The green party candidate was the odd one out with a blue tie, which apparently prompts creativity (and maybe reminds us of wind and wave energy?) although we could be reading too much into the tie situation as John Gormley said that he just borrowed it off someone in the office at the last moment…..

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore held his own but unfortunately squabbled with Enda Kenny which made the option of a coalition look decidedly unattractive.

Gerry Adams at one point bit the head off Micheál Martin with his shiny, white gnashers ‘DON’T INTERUPT ME, I DIDN’T INTERUPT YOU’ Micheál  looked suitably terrified but impertinently answered back ‘yes you did’.

On a lighter note our entry for The Eurovision pong (popular song) contest, which has been very good to Ireland, spawning Riverdance and being a great showcase for the country and its talent, was chosen on Friday. ‘Lipstick’ was the winner, with our very own, terminally optimistic, hugely successful, and much adored JEDWARD.

It is an apt title as lipstick has been used historically to boost morale in times of conflict.

With rationing in WW2, when women were encouraged to make summer frocks out of three tea towels, lipstick was worn as an act of patriotism.

Put on the war paint, to win would mean a lot.

My mobile hairdresser (previously high-flying recruitment manager) pointed out that to up our odds from 16-1 we should have embraced modern Ireland and sent some sort of Polish or Ukrainian Jedward as that is where all the votes come from. But we will have to rely on the love of all 7 year old girls who have access to mobile phones.

By the way it was announced on the news yesterday that Enda Kenny was going to try and touch the US Federal Reserve for 50 billion. I cannot find anything, anywhere to confirm this story but hey… just thought I would warn you!

blog

Fri

10°C | 2°C

Looking back on 20 pages, having tried to distill the essence of Ireland to communicate it to the homesick, what has become glaringly obvious, apart from the scenery, is that the essence of Ireland is the people. Their talents and their humour.

What has also become apparent (apart from the fact that there is no spell check on blogger) is that the only way to capture people is to write from the heart. One post concerning a death in the village I ended up removing from the blog, it was very moving and well received but I felt uncomfortable trying to benefit in some way from the tragedy.
I have also learnt that it is very easy to wind people up around certain topics....(politics..!)
And that I need a publicity photo!

Since I started this I have been asked to contribute weekly to an Irish American website and will reduce the weekdaily postings here to weekly with one article that has really come from the heart. It will be posted on Tuesday pm.

The theory of the Cuban room that I spoke about in the first post is working, with no more than an internet connection I have created an audience.
Novelist Fay Weldon was asked 'how do you write?' her answer was
'you have to sit in front of the computer every day'.



Jedward were definately in the Cuban room...



tooth fairy

Thu

7°C | 3°C

If you are ever waiting for the tooth fairy she definately comes before 4.20am
because that is when my 6 year old found the 2 euro under her pillow.

 

It will be 4 weeks tomorrow since we lost a 7yr old girl in the village to a serious illness.
Her months mind mass will be on this weekend.

It was the saddest thing.
Loved by family, friends and community. That is a successful life.
I was listening to John F McCarthy yesterday on Nationwide, founder of 'Madpride'
and sufferer of depression.
He was recently diagnosed with terminal illness and read out a poem he had written.  I can't find it anywhere but the last three lines went something like this:

To love your family,
And be loved by them.
That is enough.

She will be sorely missed but what she achieved, that was enough.

I am also missing my son who has moved out of home.
The image of someone holding a hurl can be enough to burst the dam of
my sadness with no warning. I have to remind myself he is not 6 ft under
and only half an hour away, but sadness is sadness.

I will have written 20 posts on this blog this week and that was the task
I set myself before evaluating which direction I would take on it.
My audience continually astonishes me, with US, UK, Italian, German and of
course Irish visitors so far. Thank you for looking.

hiphopopotamus

Wed

10°C | 0°C

Two of the potential leaders debated live on TV.
Micheál Martin was accused of failing to make changes in the 14 years that he has been in government Eamon Gilmore was accused of fluctuating policies to suit public opinion

To listen to the debate click here leaders debate
Alternatively listen to the hiphopopotamus vs rhymenocyerous rap.
Enda Kenny was heckled at his rally in Carrick-on-Shannon for refusing to take part.

For really inspiring reading that has been driving the change for sustainable living I highly recommend
the magazine ConstructIreland (for a sustainable future)
Irelands award winning ecobuilding and upgrading magazine.

Each issue is professional, up to the minute, honest and informative, a publication to be proud of.
The last issue on external insulation was excellent.
This is one area where we can make real change, generate employment and innovation.

Horse outside is getting his first set of shoes today. 

snowdrops

Tue

8°C | 7°C

I am new to the domestic goddess role, having lost my civil engineering job last June.

Inspired by my neighbour (made redundant last month) and in an effort to get my children to eat what is in their lunchbox I have decided to try and make 'Irish scones in a flash' following a video on you tube.

The gales, and the public, have been whipping the canvassers over the last week. A little group of nervous politicians braved the school gate on Friday. One mum, twins strapped in the back of her people carrier bravely let down her window:

'Do you see her.... she lost her job, do you see him.... he lost his job, I lost my job, she lost her      job etc etc' she pointed out the economic casualties in the group of parents standing huddled in the wind, each one carrying the burden of a mortgage that can now probably not be met.

There is a lot of anger and mistrust out there. I would say more than anger, people are furious, desperate and feel powerless, but we have to get past that and move on. After all we live in a democracy and are therefore responsible for our own destiny. We don't have to camp out in Eyre square and fight the gardai to get a new leader. 

The same highly talented, frustrated mum was on a 12 women committee with me to raise money, design and build a community crèche in the village. We were dismissed and obstructed at every turn but after 5 years of meeting every monday evening (and bearing 23 children between us in the 5 years) the crèche, costing 1.4 million euro was built. Despite being told that it would never be financially viable the 100 places are full and there is a long waiting list.

That is the vision and perseverance that we are capable of generating.

This evening there is a live TV debate with the potential Taoisigh ('leaders'), but one of the three, Enda Kenny, the odds on favourite, has refused to attend citing prior engagements (hmmm.. waiting for the TV satellite guy perhaps?)  What happens if he had to debate Sarkozy on the corporation tax, (meeting his granny at the airport... thats always a good one...?) The frustration is palpable.

We have to rise up and make something out of this mess, the snowdrops (ultimate symbol of perserverance) are out and so are the scones.



export

Mon

8°C | 2°C

'You know the timber bit inside the loo roll?

well you take two of those and stick them together and cover them in tin foil,then you sing the weather song and go to the window and see if it is sunny, snowy or rainy.

Then Miss writes it on the board.'

My 5 yr old has the cherished job of 'weather reader' today and I doubt she is going to report

blue skies and sun, which is the official forcast as above, we are still in the tail end of the storm. For example on Saturday morning a 8ft wall built for my son to play hurling against and to try and 

tempt him away from the windows (they never lost their appeal) blew down.

Symbolic?

Everyone is talking about export. We have to develop the export market to survive.
The stone factory where I used to work, Irish Natural Stone Products, is now just ticking over
making the odd Celtic Cross memorial.The 300k water jet stone saw, the brand new tile plant, and all the other large equipment
that churned out window sills and flooring for the building boom sit idle.
My ex-boss came to lunch yesterday. 
He is going to China to try and secure a contract flooring a huge new train station.

We wish him good fortune.

One company that has excelled in export is C and F tooling, established in Athenry in 1989

to design and manufacture jigs and press tools. It recently expanded into the green energy market,

proving that even the weather has some potential for export.Turnover in 2007 reached $100,000,000.
Last January I was skiing in Czech and we passed the frozen, barren, windswept region

where my old friend Ella Coffey, working for C and F, was sent to procure a site,
build a factory and set up the Czech division of C and F.
A single woman attempting such a feat in a country still entraped
by the remnants of communist bureaucracy and not knowing the language was laughed at.
Nobody is laughing now. With nothing more than a terrier like determination she purchased 
a 19 acre site, got the 200,000 sq ft factory built and is managing it,
flying back to Ireland every weekend where I met her on the flight back to Dublin.
This is the fighting spirit that we cannot afford to lose.

hens teeth

 









The weather map doesn't really reflect the fact that a tree blew over in Dublin and killed a lady and my friends trampoline left her garden yesterday afternoon and hasn't been seen since. There is a bad storm here and election posters are flying off lamp posts all over the country attacking commuters.

I texted my mother yesterday 'what's in ur BBQ sauce for leg of lamb'
This is what I got back
'2 tabl sp tom ketchup, dito mushroom ketchup and worcester sauce, 1 tbl sp spicey fruit sauce or home made chut. 1 or 2 oz butter melted, tea spoon sugar, dash red wine vinegar, dash tabasco. Mix!Half hour before cooked baste with 1/2 sauce and again towards end, so it mostly ends up in the gravy when you make it, Very good with creamy mash and day before poke in slivers of garlic and rub powdererd mustard and ginger and pepper and leave out of fridge for a few hours before cooking. Bon Appetite!'
Not bad texting for a 73 yr old? Her index finger must have a blister on it after all that.
I got all the ingredients last night but mushroom ketchup does not exist.

I failed to get a Galway Advertiser yesterday. The Galway Advertiser is a free paper with local jobs in it that comes out on Thursdays.

 

Have a look at the Galway Advertiser digital edition for local news.
It is impossible to get a copy even though it has a huge circulation, last year distributing over 35,000 papers in Galway, the highest print run of any local newspaper in Ireland.
To get your hands on one you have to whisper to the shop assistant
'Have you an advertiser?'
And if she deems you special enough she will give you one from the secret stash behind the counter, making sure you know she has bestowed a great honour on you.
They are like hens teeth.

There is only about 5 jobs in them these days anyway.

zen and the gypsy wife

Thu

9°C | 5°C

Everyones on about  Big Fat Gypsy Weddings the Channel 4 documentary.

     According to the Daily Mail (not a reliable source!) the weddings cost anywhere up to

150k- cash. They are probably not far off as the dress above, complete with LED lighting in the 20 petticoats, moving butterflies and weighing over 20 stone, (the girls are bandaged around the waist so they don't scar too badly) cost about 50k. Then there are usually about ten bridesmaids dressed similarly, a mini bride aged 7 or 8 in a matching dress , a glass horse drawn carriage, disney land 8 stone cake, lots of chips and beer for the boys etc etc etc. The wedding present would be a new trailer for the happy couple.

The saddest part of the programme was young Margaret, 13, taking on the jobs of her sister who was getting married and leaving her as the oldest girl. Her duties would include getting the children to school, cooking, and cleaning. She was filmed crying as the bride and groom had their first dance and crying as she tried to pack the huge wedding dress into a small bag outside her trailer after the wedding. She would be expected to keep the trailer spotless, mop any footprint off the floor instantly and the prospect was overwhelming. 

The traveller girls cannot have a boyfriend before marriage at a young age. If they did they risk the whole family being outcast from the shame. To capture their husbands and ensure their future they wear the most revealing outfits possible at any social occaision and dance like Shakira from the age of 5.

 

 Wonderful girls, cared for and protected but owned and ruled by the men.

When they get married they have to practice the zen of cleaning the trailer with total focus. 

It is hard to see how this inequality could change without losing the traditional family

values along the way.

It is Chinese new year today so the school children were asked to wear something red as an emblem of joy, happiness, virtue, truth and sincerity.

It is the year of the Rabbit.

People born in the year of the Rabbit are supposedly kind and loving and dislike any hostility. Ireland's President, Mary McAleese, was born in a previous year of the Rabbit.

Happy New Year!

Xin nian hao in Mandarin.

Kung hey fat cho (“wishing you prosperity”) in Cantonese

mayhem

Wed

8°C | 4°C

Lashing rain.
Mayhem in Egypt with protests, Australia with cyclones and Ireland with the election.

Inspirational Irish person of the day:
Imelda May, classy girl.


Click on the link to hear current tune Mayhem-
mayhem-utube

Update on my horse outside Floyd. He recovered from the dentist and yesterday I rode him in the arena for about half an hour and he behaved so I am very pleased with him. I had to get him officially measured the evening before or he wouldn't be able to compete in anything this year. He is about 15hh and the most valuable size for him to be would be 2 inches shorter. People go to great lengths to get ponies in the size range they want, they file down their feet, they train them for months to bend their knees when required, I have even heard of an operation to slice off their withers :( (the top of the shoulder) to reduce them in height to 14.2hh. I would have been happy if he measured under 15hh as that would be ok for show hunter pony classes which he would be good at. He had never seen a measuring stick before and when the vet approached he spread his legs and cowered down like an inverted banana actually making himself two inches smaller! So he is officially 14.2hh. Perfect- more options. Only he is going to have to do that for the rest of his life whenever he is measured....He also let me load him into the trailer by myself and travelled well in it which means I can bring him places without any hassle which is great news.

The year before last we got planning permission for a nature centre on the farm. Although the project was very popular with the community and backed by the enterprise board we were stopped from going ahead because of an objection. We are seriously considering resubmitting a scaled down version with a farm cafe, nature walk and playground. The theory being- try to make the best of what you have. We have 50 acres of pasture, rock, trees and a tidal fresh water lake called a turlough. Surely merits a nature centre!?

unusual fresh water tidal lake/turlough



spring

Tue

10°C | 7°C

I am sitting at my desk in the West of Ireland, just a wave away from New York.

It is Spring apparently but I don’t see any flowers attempting to brave the chill

and the financial climate is no brighter…you know all about that.

So here is something guaranteed to cheer you up,

part of a culture that can never be accused of lack of colour-
an Irish traveller wedding in Dublin.

Who needs daffodils?

Spring will also bring the Burren to life, my favourite place in the world.

The limestone hills sit like brooding hens along the Atlantic coast.

Wonderful, rare flowers will bloom in the crevices of the desolate moonscape

with the perseverance of the young traveller girls baring flesh in the

bone-cutting westerly breezes.

But there is an old saying…… ‘you can’t eat scenery.’

We are losing 1500 people a week and I can feel the pain of their broken hearted

mothers across the country as they pack their bags.

My 16 yr old boy, my 6ft 2 pride and joy, came to take his clothes on Friday.

I blamed a sad documentary on the TV as tears streamed down my face later that evening.

Childhood over, no more thump, thump, thump as the slither hits off the side of the house,

practising hurling every day for the past ten years.
How it drove us mad that thump, thump, thump.

We roared ‘would you ever stop?’ And if it stopped for a minute
it was nearly worse because you didn’t know when to expect the next thump
and your nerves would be wrecked.

But what I would give to hear it again.

He isn’t going abroad, he is only moving half an hour away with the innocent notion of a career

‘riding horses’ and the total incomprehension of the naivety of his decision to quit
school the year before his leaving cert.
As the method actors who access their painful life moments to portray emotion,

I can easily put myself in the place of all the other mothers who are crying and

whose young people may decide to stay where life is easier and home will become

a quick holiday once a year.

So that is the way it is here, still beautiful, still colourful, we are still laughing,

still playing music, Spring will come and we will leave a light on in the window.