Hmm, I think this pic, sent in by a good reader speaks for itself. If you’ve spotted a similarly ridiculous sign in any shop send them in and I’ll do my best to bring them to a wider audience… Maybe I should even have a competition to find the funniest one? What do you reckon?
I think most of the Irish people who watched this moment on Prime Time last night probably cheered even if they would have rathered Pat Rabbitte’s rage was directed at someone more directly responsible for the mess we are in today.
The main Irish Times editorial today is remarkable and powerfully conveys the anger and despair felt by most people this evening.
“IT MAY seem strange to some that The Irish Times would ask whether this is what the men of 1916 died for: a bailout from the German chancellor with a few shillings of sympathy from the British chancellor on the side. There is the shame of it all. Having obtained our political independence from Britain to be the masters of our own affairs, we have now surrendered our sovereignty to the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Their representatives ride into Merrion Street today.
Fianna Fáil has sometimes served Ireland very well, sometimes very badly. Even in its worst times, however, it retained some respect for its underlying commitment that the Irish should control their own destinies. It lists among its primary aims the commitment “to maintain the status of Ireland as a sovereign State”. Its founder, Eamon de Valera, in his inaugural address to his new party in 1926, spoke of “the inalienability of national sovereignty” as being fundamental to its beliefs. The Republican Party’s ideals are in tatters now.
The Irish people do not need to be told that, especially for small nations, there is no such thing as absolute sovereignty. We know very well that we have made our independence more meaningful by sharing it with our European neighbours. We are not naive enough to think that this State ever can, or ever could, take large decisions in isolation from the rest of the world. What we do expect, however, is that those decisions will still be our own. A nation’s independence is defined by the choices it can make for itself.
Irish history makes the loss of that sense of choice all the more shameful. The desire to be a sovereign people runs like a seam through all the struggles of the last 200 years. “Self-determination” is a phrase that echoes from the United Irishmen to the Belfast Agreement. It continues to have a genuine resonance for most Irish people today.
The true ignominy of our current situation is not that our sovereignty has been taken away from us, it is that we ourselves have squandered it. Let us not seek to assuage our sense of shame in the comforting illusion that powerful nations in Europe are conspiring to become our masters. We are, after all, no great prize for any would-be overlord now. No rational European would willingly take on the task of cleaning up the mess we have made. It is the incompetence of the governments we ourselves elected that has so deeply compromised our capacity to make our own decisions.
They did so, let us recall, from a period when Irish sovereignty had never been stronger. Our national debt was negligible. The mass emigration that had mocked our claims to be a people in control of our own destiny was reversed. A genuine act of national self-determination had occurred in 1998 when both parts of the island voted to accept the Belfast Agreement. The sense of failure and inferiority had been banished, we thought, for good.
To drag this State down from those heights and make it again subject to the decisions of others is an achievement that will not soon be forgiven. It must mark, surely, the ignominious end of a failed administration.”
There was a big response to the 12 sites of Christmas story. Some readers wondered about Irish online shopping sites with great gift ideas so here are some of the best.
Beautifully drawn and often hilarious limited edition prints (€150-€250) from this Sligo-based artist. anniewest.com Children’s illustrator Carla Daly has all kinds of growth charts, door signs, kids’ wall stickers and personalised art for kids’ bedrooms. carladaly.com Possibly the best online T-shirt shop, with tops emblazoned with slogans you’d have to be Irish to understand, eg “Where’s Grandad?” hairybaby.com This site has loads of presents, from cheesy mugs and novelty socks to natty lamps and Ugg boots. peoplelovepresents.com An online marketplace for finding lessons in everything from tuba playing to bee-keeping. mindhives.com A very cute site with a range of home accessories and gifts selected for their nostalgic feel, their sense of fun or their handmade nature. mabelandviolet.com Pigeon lamp, Charlie Monkey and Mono cat are just three of the gifts on this site but it doesn’t confine itself to animal-themed presents. nofixedabode.ie Hard to beat for its weird and wonderful range of gifts from the really cute to the really ridiculous. pressieport.ie
We lost track of our pounds during the boom years but did a fine job looking after our pennies, mostly by storing them securely behind sofa cushions, in change jars and in the pockets of old pairs of jeans. But does the copper mountain we have accumulated have any real value or is it time we scrapped it, particularly as minting all those coins we treat so carelessly costs so much and none of us is likely to have two cents to rub together come Budget day?
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I was going to put this up last Monday but, um, dammit! I can’t think of an excuse…
YES, I REALISE there are still 46 (40 as of today) cold, wet and increasingly dark days until Christmas and that by even mentioning the C word so early in November I run the risk of incurring the wrath of readers everywhere. But when it comes to shopping online – where some of the best bargains and most unusual presents can be found — it is important to get it over with early so you don’t spend Christmas week fretting about all those gifts which have yet to arrive.
While the big players in e-tailing such as amazon.com, play.com and even ebay.com are going to be popular with Irish shoppers over the coming weeks, to find the best presents at the best value, it’s a good idea to cast your net wider.
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These should be hard times for growers and sellers of organic food. Not only are they trying to sell premium-priced products in a recession, they also have to contend with increasingly downbeat scientific assessments of the nutritional benefits of the food they are coaxing people to buy.
The latest study to cast doubt on the benefits of eating organically was published this week by scientists at the University of Copenhagen. After a two-year experiment comparing the health-giving properties of organic vegetables with those of conventionally grown ones, the scientists declared the contest to be more or less a heat.
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