Has Ireland lost its heart?

It was 31 years ago that Mary Valarasan-Toomey came to Ireland from Sri Lanka to study science at Trinity College. The daughter of two teachers, she was taught by Irish nuns in her home town of Jaffna and she says she was made very welcome in Ireland from the day she arrived.

"Despite the fact that I was far away from everything that was familiar to me I felt at home in the heart of Dublin and did not feel painfully homesick," she says. "I got to know Irish people very quickly. They were very friendly, always ready to greet me and to welcome a stranger and to apologise for the Irish weather.

"Irish people always found time for everyone and I was struck by the ease with which they befriended strangers and the generosity with which invited them to their homes for tea or supper. People had time to talk, time to laugh and they needed very little to enjoy themselves. A chat over a cup of tea in the kitchen could produce plenty of humour and craic.

"What saddens me profoundly is that I believe we are in danger of losing these qualities completely. People have no time for each other any more. They no longer greet you in the street and they look away if someone needs help.

"A great deal of the humour is gone out of Irish life. Just look at people's grim faces as they go about their business and the anger we are experiencing on our roads. Perhaps worst of all, we have become increasingly materialistic and the pursuit of money has become all-consuming."

She says that she is not against the development of Irish society and the improvements in people's standards of living. "Change is life, it has to happen if we are to grow and move forward and I'm not stuck in some sort of nostalgic time warp for the lost Ireland. But, as someone who came in from the outside, I perhaps see the changes more clearly than Irish people themselves.

Perhaps, I'm also more aware of the distinctive qualities of Irish people which made Ireland a special place.

"I've been deeply upset to see the erosion of `Ireland of the welcomes' which welcomed me with open arms 30 years ago. One only has to look at the distressing changes in attitudes to see what I mean. I never thought that there would ever be racism in Ireland and that I would have to stand on a podium appealing to the people of Ireland not to humiliate refugees and asylum seekers."

Mary Toomey says that she began to notice the subtle changes in Irish society about 10 years ago but that the pace of these changes has accelerated dramatically since 1995.

"More and more people are living as individuals not as part of a community. The inter-connectedness that was a great feature of Irish life has all but gone - a simple example is the demise of neighbourliness. Everyone has gone into the fast track where the driving force is fundamentally monetary. As I watch what this is doing to people in terms of their family life, their relationships and their self development, I'm reminded of Ghandi's comment that `there is more to life than increasing its speed.'

`SADLY this is now affecting our children. Just look at their worried faces when they are facing into the Leaving Cert. There has to be a better way of deciding their future. So much revolves around how they do that they are sick with worry at a time in their lives when they should be enjoying learning and when school should be a happy place to be. Today's teenagers seem preoccupied with gathering points and gathering money to buy the latest designer fashions.

"Parents and children alike have become stressed out by the pace of life. I think we're going to see people completely burnt out by their mid-or late thirties. We should be profoundly worried about this."

Mary Toomey has always had a strong interest in education. She taught biology at second and third level in Ireland and Nigeria for a number of years after graduation. She is the author of a number of biology text books and was instrumental in raising the profile of science teaching in Irish schools and in having biology included as a subject for the Leaving Cert.

"Thirty years later and we're still talking about improving the resources for science in our schools," she says. "By now we should have dealt with all of that and there should be proper facilities for science at all levels. But unfortunately science is still suffering."

Most of Mary Toomey's time now is divided between writing and lecturing. An ecologist and passionate gardener, she contributes to a number of gardening publications and she is the editor of The Clematis, the journal of the British Clematis Society.

She made her television debut on the Channel 4 series, Bloom, and her book, Clematis, will be published next spring. She gives talks to gardening clubs and societies around Ireland and with her own small garden now full to capacity, she "borrows" space in other people's gardens to grow more of her favourite plants.

"Gardening is such a restful, rewarding and therapeutic way to spend time," she says. "It's also a great way of sharing time with a partner if you're working on a project together. But, of course, this is something else that suffers in a Tiger economy. People have so little time for sharing a DIY job or planning a garden. They want everything instantaneously."

MARY TOOMEY'S views on the price being paid by Irish society for the Celtic Tiger are captured in her new book, The Celtic Tiger, from the outside looking in. "I always wanted to write a book about Ireland to say `thank you' to the people of Ireland and I had always hoped to write it with joy," she says.

"But sadly things have changed so much that I no longer felt able to do this in the way I had intended. Instead, I've written a book which I hope will remind adults of what we had in this country and will act as a resource for young Irish people who have never known Ireland any other way.

"I'm all for change and moving on, but I think we should never lose sight of our humanity or our rich, caring heritage."

The Celtic Tiger - From the Outside Looking In by Mary Valarasan-Toomey. Published by Blackhall at £9.99