West Coast View

A mother takes her family problems to court and receives an estimate of the legal costs which make them look affordable. As she proceeds with the case the legal fees escalate far above the initial estimate to the point where she can no longer afford professional representation, and she now has to go down into the unforgiving pit of a courtroom and defend herself with no legal training. In another case, the bills mount up so high that the plaintiff is at risk of losing her family home if she does not find a way to drum up tens of thousands of Euros.

From its founding in 1970 to the end of the 20th century, the SDLP had been the main voice of Irish nationalism in the north. Sinn Fein's share of the nationalist vote increased at the SDLP’s expense after the Good Friday Agreement took effect and Sinn Fein put more distance between itself and the Provisional IRA's armed campaign. Some unionist commentators are fond of making the preposterous suggestion that nationalist voters are inclined to support violence but unionist voters are not, an allegation that is refuted by the very fact that Sinn Fein did not become the potent political force it is until long after the violence stopped.

England is the land of the orderly queue, the door held open for the next person, the polite “sorry” at even the slightest hint of being on a collision course in the street, and the stifled understated emotions that dare not breach the surface. It is the land where people on crowded trains hide behind their newspapers, talk in discreet whispers, and will not stand up to open a window on even the hottest of summer days for fear of embarrassment. And yet this most docile and civilized of societies descended into chaos, vandalism, and riot for a few summer days in August.

It has been a year in which the impossible seems to be happening almost on a monthly basis. A reigning British queen has paid a visit to Croke Park. A black American president has sipped a pint of Guinness in his ancestral village of Moneygall. And now a Taoiseach has stood in the Dail and, at great length, openly lambasted the Catholic church leadership and the Vatican over its handling of the horrors of Ireland's clerical sex abuse legacy.

East Belfast erupts into more night time rioting as youths take to the streets and get their wish of being on TV as they act the tough guy by attacking police Land Rovers and throwing Molotov cocktails. Innocent people are terrorized in their own homes and are forced to erect makeshift barriers to protect their doors and windows in the hope that they will absorb the missiles flying over the so-called "peace walls" from either side. Paramilitary goons who fancy themselves as warlords take delight in having an army of bored teenagers to do their bidding.

The passing of former Taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald reminds us of an era in Irish politics that looks very different from today’s tribunals and their bottomless digs into the sordid details of corruption in public life. The Troubles in the north were constantly on the brink of spiraling out of control, emigration was the favored pathway to a better life, and contraceptives could only be obtained in the north. There was plenty for an ambitious and liberal-minded Taoiseach to get his teeth into.

One of the intriguing aspects of the GAA that startles first-time visitors to Croke Park is a notable extra piece of information given beside each player’s listing in the match program; their occupation. The GAA unites people from all walks of life on the playing field; doctors, bartenders, bankers, laborers, engineers and policemen. In the case of policemen, it was not so long ago that this was an exclusively southern affair where the only police officers in Ireland eligible to play Gaelic games were those of the Garda Síochána. Nowadays, officers from the PSNI, the reformed police force in the north, can also play since a controversial rule banning members of the British security forces was overwhelmingly voted out of existence by the GAA's membership in response to long-awaited reforms to policing in the north that took place following recommendations by the Patten Commission.

There is still no end to the Chinese water torture of the steady drip of revelations concerning shady dealings between Irish politicians and businessmen. At a time when Ireland needs foreign investment like never before, her reputation as a place to do business has taken a pounding from the publication of the second part of the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal. The first part, published in 2006, chiefly concerned the financial dealings of Charles Haughey. The second part focuses on those of Michael Lowry of Fine Gael during his time as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications during the “Rainbow Coalition” government of the 1990s.

A period of net emigration does not have to spell eternal disaster for Ireland.

Every so often a political party spends so long in office and accumulates so many mistakes that it crumples under their weight and is banished to political oblivion for a generation. The British Conservative party's grip on power for the duration of the 1980s and early 90s stretched political endurance to unprecedented levels, but its unpopularity at the end of its reign was followed by an equally long period when Conservative rule was just unthinkable. It took four attempts to find a leader that could rehabilitate the party and make it electable again, a process that took over a decade, and came to an end thanks to Labour's record-breaking stint in office in which they too ran out of steam.