Let's Hear it for the Potato

I DON'T understand why Irish people should be so upset by the recent Daily Article by Bruce Anderson on Commissioner Padraig Flynn and his West of Ireland background.

Here is the opening paragraph of Mr Anderson's piece: "As soon as you arrive in Ireland, you leave the modern world. Every mile you travel west of Dublin is also a mile west of the 20th century. By the time you arrive at Castlebar, Co Mayo, you have reached a timeless region."

In a single paragraph Mr Anderson has done more for British tourism to Ireland than the Irish Tourist Board does in a year with its dreary marketing jargon about "product" and "consumer" and how Ireland should be "majoring on people interaction", whatever that means. Everybody else beyond Baggot Street Bridge knows that people come to Ireland, and particularly the West of Ireland, to escape the "real" world of the 20th century with all its hideous pressures.

It is a pity Mr Anderson did not point out that Castlebar is only about 150 miles from Dublin, so that this timeless region can be reached from the capital (the Tourist Board would say "accessed") in about three hours by car; or that another hour's travel will land you in the pretime area of Connemara, where you would be wasting your time looking for an up to date edition of the Daily Mail.

It is ironic too that the Tourist Board is trying to get rid of the shamrock (or at least play it down) when the Daily Mail article makes it clear that the abiding symbol of Ireland remains the potato. As Bruce Anderson puts it, the economy practised in the Castlebar region "is a pre 20th century economy based on the pig and potato and presided over by the priest."

I would have to agree with Mr Anderson that this is not a desirable state of affairs. Clearly a country cannot have the religious in charge of financial affairs, though the Vatican State after some difficult years, has apparently turned the corner again.

However, the essential point is that the pig and potato based economy is one that has served us very well over many years. We abandon it at our peril. Mr Anderson has done us a useful service in drawing it to our attention at a time when too many of us are foolishly confident that advanced technology, cheap labour, EU driven policies and a common currency are the way forward.

Leaving aside the economy, what are we to make of Mr Anderson's assertion that Padraig Flynn has never moved beyond the intellectual confines of his native West Mayo?

We are surely to see it as an intelligent compliment. Anyone who knows anything about West Mayo will be aware that its intellectual confines are remarkably spacious, and Mr Anderson would surely not mention the area without knowing a little about it. Would it be an insult to say that Samuel Beckett and James Joyce never moved beyond the intellectual confines of Dublin city, though they both took up residence abroad? Of course not.

Mr Anderson obviously means that just because Commissioner Flynn spends much of his time in Brussels, an attractive city but hardly the flowering place of a modern Renaissance, there is no reason to believe his intellectual abilities have been in any way impaired.

I am quite certain that Mr Anderson, who presumably dwells in London, is perfectly happy to live within the intellectual confines of a city where an insurance broker's recent success with a new alien impregnation policy (300 sales in the first week) encouraged it to offer "Virgin Birth by Act of God" insurance - great value at a mere £2 weekly for cover of £1 million.

Last September, Peregrine Worsthorne wrote in the Sunday Telegraph about a trip to Ireland, and described a "pleasing exchange" in a shop in Castlepollard. When he asked if there were any English Sunday newspapers for sale, the female owner replied: "Not the kind a gentleman of your sort would wish to be reading."

Mr Worsthorne asked his readers to imagine any British newsagent turning down a sale in that way, and related the tale to indicate his belief that "nothing invaluable" has really changed in Ireland.

He is right. Nothing invaluable has changed. We would never attempt to pass tabloid garbage off on customers whose appearance and behaviour instantly reveal good taste. We can still read between the lines of any British newspaper column on Ireland and the Irish, and know exactly what they think of us. We also recognise gentlemen and compliments and are similarly impressed by both.