Una Mullally: An emboldened people with rising standards threatens conservatives

The pandemic era can feel like an infinite loop of more of the same, but that doesn’t mean that things aren’t changing. Here are three trends that I think will underscore change in Ireland this year.

The first is a new era of emigration. In 1987 Fianna Fáil’s Brian Lenihan Snr said “we can’t all live on a small island”. In 2008 his party colleague Mary Coughlan said emigration was “not a bad thing”. In 2012 Michael Noonan of Fine Gael characterised Irish emigration as “a choice of lifestyle”.

The obstinate fiction perpetrated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians is that emigration is a happy-go-lucky choice. This offensive narrative is actually about who gets to live here, and a complete disregard for the diversity of needs and desires of an eclectic population. It’s the sort of thinking that at its most blunt can be characterised as: if you don’t like it, lump it.

Unless you come from familial wealth it is very difficult to see the spoils of your labour in real terms

For the first time in my life I am witnessing two trends of emigration that I have not seen before. The first is a growing number of people leaving Dublin for other parts of Ireland. The second is friends with jobs and opportunities in Dublin moving to cities outside of Ireland that were previously seen as tougher place to make a go of things.

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All of this is underscored by the housing crisis. No matter how hard you work in Ireland now, unless you come from familial wealth it is very difficult to see the spoils of your labour in real terms. What is the point of toiling away in Ireland when there are only kips of places to rent, the quality of life is poor, and city life is boring?

Priced out of Dublin, rural Ireland and towns outside the commuter belt have become an option for many people who make their lives in Dublin but can’t afford to buy a house in the capital. This will drive up house prices outside of Dublin, which is already happening at a remarkable rate.

Fragmented

It also causes contagion. As people’s friend groups become more fragmented, and the capital fails to provide people with a quality of life, decent amenities, and plentiful cultural activities, more people will up and go to somewhere they can at least have more space and design a new life.

This is also dovetailing with people taking stock during the pandemic and wanting to get out of the rat race, and also how remote working is changing urban culture.

The growing number of younger people, particularly artists, leaving for London, Glasgow, and Berlin is primarily down to rent affordability, but also because the housing crisis in Dublin has decimated underground culture. Those who build scenes cannot afford to rent in the capital, so go elsewhere to participate in and build communities of like-minded people.

The second trend is how the trauma of the Troubles is surfacing in the 21st century. More and more people’s personal experiences are coming to the fore in a way that feels different. Ironically, while Sinn Féin does not want to discuss the Troubles beyond its own rigid narrative, its emergence as the dominant political force in Ireland seems to be unlocking something.

The human cost of the Troubles has long been written and spoken about by women in particular in the North. At some stage people in the South will have to address their collective failings of comprehension and solidarity, and finally engage with what it meant and means to live in a part of the island where the context was so extraordinary, so brutalised and so ignored.

We are going to hear many more personal stories of loss that will be framed as individual tragedies and injustices that demand to be listened to, and not utilised for the purpose of sectarian or political point-scoring.

Mary Lou McDonald is popular for multiple reasons, but the Government parties do not appear to understand that many people are excited by the prospect of a female taoiseach

There have been many attempts to address historical injustices in Ireland, particularly in relation to women, children, and gay people. Yet, bizarrely, the Troubles has not occupied a dominant space in this national healing circle. We may be reaching a point where the contemporary pain of past traumas may actually be listened to.

Leadership

The third trend is about leadership. Leo Varadkar reassuming the role of taoiseach in December (if the Government lasts that long) will be a disaster for Fine Gael. Up until now, as loathed as this Government is by many people, the ineffective leadership of Micheál Martin has paradoxically kept public sentiment from going nuclear. But Varadkar’s personal politics and his knack for self-sabotage make him an unpredictable and antagonistic force at the helm.

There is also a complete lack of self-awareness in all Government parties about what a turn-off their boys’ club aura is, something amplified by the stream of men in suits telling us what to do during the pandemic. Mary Lou McDonald is popular for multiple reasons, but the Government parties do not appear to understand that many people are excited by the prospect of a female taoiseach. That would be, well, a change.

But the greatest change that has occurred in Ireland is within people themselves. The biggest generation gap is actually confidence. And an emboldened people with rising standards will continue to be a threat to the conservative, the inadequate and the like-it-or-lump it gang.