I can't see clearly now the rain ain't gone...

When I was younger, I used to say that we should get a giant tugboat to drag Ireland to the Carribean. Even today, I'd be willing take tropical storms in exchange for good weather, strong Guinness and cricket. And after yet another endless, dark and miserable Winter, it'd better happen soon. Things have become such, that my wife has taken the next evolutionary step towards becoming a creature of hibernation, and my work on finding clothes that can be worn without getting sodden by a renegade gang of rain clouds continues.

Furthermore, my balcony is now a makeshift shipyard, and once I find info on Google about building tugs, then there's no going back! Short story race goes well, and the radio show script stays rooted in reality.

He is an Irishman! He remains an Irish-man!!

Easter, it seems, is upon us, and for the life of me I can't find my copy of St. John's Passion by Bach (God knows why - bet he hid it, cos he doesn't like Bach). I have spent the contemplating deciding a few things, a little like Winnie the Pooh after sitting on a log. And like Pooh, my head is full of not very much at the moment.

I went to Kilmainham Gaol on Wednesday, after my depressing encounter with the Royal Hospital, and was enthralled. Why? Because there's nothing sacred in Ireland, and yet places like this loom in the back of our consciousness. The leaders of 1916 were executed here, and many other poor, nameless, unfortunates passed through the old place until it was closed in 1924. What got me though, was the fact that the tour guide, whether by his own eloquence and apparently earnest republicanism, or by my mood that day, swayed me. He managed to bring across something that every person, be they Irish or the New Irish, of which there were many, visiting the place on any particular day should be encouraged to foster: That people sometimes feel a sense of duty which goes beyond self gratification or self preservation.

More telling was the fact that our government's indifference towards our heritage did not stop miraculously at the gates of Kilmainham. Dublin's secular shrine to our violent, tragic, beautiful history has been just as neglected, and would have been demolished in 1960, but for volunteers who fought the good fight and saved the Gaol by the skin of its sad, grey teeth. They felt a sense of duty to do what the government of the day refused to do.

Maybe it's the building, but that's a noble virtue to encourage. So long may it stand!

When you can't see yourself...

Certain things remain constant when it comes to St. Patrick's day. The weather will be as predictable as a drunk squaring up for a fight with a barman wanting to avoid serving him. So, we thought, was the date, but it turned out that the church got into a tizzy because a feast day can't be in the same week as Easter. The confusion was remarkable. Paddy Power was taking bets as to when the parade was on. People were stocking up on tinned shamrock, just in case it never came and the fallout would mean the next Paddy's day might be after some kind of Bord Failte/Vatican sponsored Apocalypse: a haphazard, Mad Max-like Paddy's day, with renegade gangs attacking each other with shillelaghs. As it happened, the catastrophe I imagined was averted when I went to ask in the tourist office. I get a very definite "Monday. It's gonna be great", from a guy with an accent as mid-Atlantic as the Azores. I really wanted him to say "Begorrah", just for good measure.

The big day just didn't feel particularly special. Everyone went home for tea, and the city was calm and clean. I didn't feel it particularly the day before either, when I was in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham. This is a place where Dublin normally make sense to me, and I am reasonably at ease with my Irishness. The Museum is housed in the Old Royal Hospital, which is a gorgeous, and a criminally neglected, part of Dublin's underrated heritage. It looks starkly like a French chateau, which is good, because that's what it was styled as.

I walked through the entrance gate and walked around to the front of the Royal Hospital Building, which overlooks the Liffey valley and stands as on of two towering sentinels as you arrive on the train into Heuston Station below. Whereas the Wellington Obelisk, which stands on the other side of the valley is as imposing as it always was, I discovered that Kilmainham, a more elegant, nuanced structure, has been cut off from the rest of the city by a new development of apartments and offices. My heart sank, because this was a new development by and Irish architect and an Irish contractor, and so it wasn't like you could say it came out of the mind of someone who hadn't a breeze about where it was being plonked.

If you can't knock it, hide it. And its a sorry fact that Dublin people never wanted the building to survive. To some it might be a relic of our colonial past. Others probably don't know it exists and don't even care. In the 80's, they wanted to demolish it to make way for a bus depot. Well, that was then, and Ireland hadn't yet discovered the delights of prefabricated KFCs. The Royal Hospital is just otherworldly, and from the ornamental gardens, you could look down river towards the city and feast your eyes on a view that probably hadn't changed much since the 18th century. It would have to take an act of utter tastelessness to cut off the old building from the city. Maybe it's development, but it seems to be predicated on the notion that development comes at the price of beauty, which has its own, ethereal value. And the banks can't touch it.

Alone it stands, and thank God it does, if only you could get chicken twizzlers in the cafe...

A New York State of Mind

There’s a scene I really like in King Lear, which is on my mind because it’s bloody windy outside and but for the fact that I have to work indoors, I’d probably be outside in my dressing gown ranting on the moors with the best of them. I don’t remember the scene word for word, but it’s the moment when Lear’s inflated sense of himself causes his fortunes to unravel. His youngest daughter, the apple of his eye, Cordelia, says she loves him as much as she does, no more, no less. Her scheming sisters in the meantime are busy buttering daddy up before doing the Shakespearean equivalent of cutting granddad’s tags and leaving him in a park so they can take his stuff. Cordelia is a real I am what I am kinda gal. To the old man, however, Cordelia’s lack of flowery language somehow doesn’t go down too well: she gets the heave ho, and her sisters get everything else, at least for most of the play. She accepts who she is and it’s for the world to accept that, not the other way around. Enter Eric Spitzer, governor of New York, has a surname that means "pencil sharpener" in German. This is certainly appropriate, given that he has definitely been putting his lead in the wrong shaft, as it were. This week, the governor of New York State admitted having used the services of a call girl ON VALENTINES DAY, before doing something way more important, such as going home to his wife, or something like that. The man was on the political ascent, having taken on corporate misdealing as NY’s Attorney General. His reputation as an Elliot Ness-style corporate corruption buster meant that he had the potential go as far as he liked, perhaps becoming the first bald geeky guy to be in power since Anthony Hopkins in Amistad. And at 47, he's the political equivalent of a foetus.

Twas not to be. Spitzer reminds me of an unctuous, sleazy Lear. Lear rejected truth and Spitzer did so for the same reason - vanity. He had the world at his feet, the potential to go further, and instead ended his career in a spectacular belly-flop of hubris, which could potentially damage Clinton’s already ropey campaign to beat Barack Obama to being the first [insert novelty] president of the USA. Furthermore, whereas financial ill-behaviour can sometimes be brazened out, as evinced here at home, or by John McCain’s recent problems, sex is a different kettle of fish, particularly in the States. Bill Clinton nearly went that way, but got away with it because it was essentially a personal matter and the case against him was partisan. Spitzer, on the other hand, was using prostitutes, and will end up paying for it in every sense.

Commuting with Steve McQueen

Waking up in the morning is not simple process. My wife and I have a ritual which begins like a Mexican stand off between reality and our undying desire to be paid for staying in bed. Maybe if we could get on some bizarre clinical experiment for sleeping, could our ambition be fulfilled. Instead, every five minutes another one of about 20,000 alarm clocks strategically hidden around our bedroom goes off until our stubbornness caves in, and we end the beautiful dozing I seem to enjoy more than the actual sleeping. We get up, turn off the other 19,995 clocks and listen to serious radio news about the utter serious nature of seriousness. Eventually I get frantic at 8.10am, when it's clear neither of us wants to be late, but also, we haven't displayed the wherewithal to just leave. Mrs does her makeup, I invent little things that need to be settled, and become more frantic, until finally the collective fear of being late AND GETTING CAUGHT, cause me to grasp Mrs. Morgan's hand and jump off our balcony in the hope we'll land in our car. Given that we don't actually own a cabriolet, this is perhaps foolhardy, but unfortunately needs must.

The thing is, we live in a suburb in the Dublin mountains. Not to be confused with the Alps, it is not very high, and we aren't that far away from things. The problem is, that although the last fifteen years has seen our neighbourhood explode from being a hamlet, which is all it was, to being a regular, bog-standard expanse of suburban tundra. In turn, absolutely nothing has been done about the public transport servicing the area. The two or three busses that do go near us, the 63 and the 44, are so rare, you should do the lottery including those number when you do see one. It's actually easier to drive to the airport on the other side of Dublin, check in, face the humilation of the 'simon says' style of security favoured these days, and fly to London, than to get from our flat to Dublin city centre by public transport.

I'm not just bellyaching for the sake of it, despite appearances. Our daily rituals and panics were played out to the news today that none of the flagship infrastructure projects earmarked for completion this year have met their completion date. In one instance, a project has not even issued a revised completion date. Ministers barely shrug their shoulders, and look sheepish when the issue is brought up. It wouldn't be so bad, but the same newscast mentioned that the Irish economy is likely to lose out on international investment to countries like, Burundi or The Shire or Legoland, because of our pitiful transport infrastructure.

In the meantime, we'll continue our daily adventure to work, a daily homage to the frustration in 'The Great Escape', when Steve McQueen tried to jump barbed-wire on his motor bike to escape the Nazis.

Papa Doc

The event of a great statesman's retirement should be massive: tears, flowers, and plenty of blood on the cabinet room floor. More and more long serving political and public figures instead are being put out to pasture in the most banal and, to be frank, not very interesting way. They name a date after what feels like an eternity of barely spoken speculation, and then leave quietly. No fanfare, not even a pants down table dance in the middle of the UN general assembly. No fun. Tony Blair was one example. He was beginning to act like the guest from hell at a (Labour) Party. Politely cajoling the man into taking his tins of beer and kindly pushing off obviously hadn't worked, and everyone was too scared of him to tell him outright to go take a running jump. So he held off, and Gordon brooded even more, like the curious hybrid of Heathcliff and Gordon Banks that he is, until slick Tony handed over the keys to No. 10.

So when it came to the political demise yesterday of Big Ian Paisley, surely this man was going to give us something more exiting. Long serving politicians on these islands don't come bigger than him, so it's no more than you'd expect. He's like the Queen. Always there, he's been around since the days of Churchill, and his presence is somehow an absolute, like rain.

Nope. Not a sausage. For Paisley, the end came a little more low key. He quit his Free Presbyterian Church, all nice and nearly civilized. Then his son, Ian Jr. resigned for what in the Republic seems absolutely mystifying: he had business dealings with a developer. Bertie Ahern must have nearly choked on his Coco Pops: In Northern Ireland, they'll govern with men they'd have gladly seen off the planet twenty years ago, but dodgy land deals are a no-no. And then it was announced yesterday, he was leaving after an investment conference in May, and that's that. the end. No fire, no brimstone, no 'get stuffed ye Papish scum'. Nothing. In fact, he has a place in his heart for all Irish people, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter.

Ian could have had a greatest hits tour, gone hell for leather and we'd have had a bit of fun for the next month, instead it seems only Robert Mugabe is willing give us that, and the laughs ain't great there. Chances are, that when Bertie goes, it will be even less satisfying for Political junkies like myself, unless on leaving, his state car is replaced by a Securicor van and some outriders, or a balloon and ruby slippers. Let's see what happens, and try to enjoy the show.

Ireland, and they way we might look at it...

Until recently, I found it extremely easy to ignore the fact that people in Ireland might be unhappy, that the lives people live might be flawed in some way. They are. Such is life. But events in south Dublin over the last week have provoked fury from the public and media, and as I write, not one person has answered for what has happened. 1,000 people, including President Mary McAleese, Justice Minister Brian Lenihan and the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin attended a special memorial service for two men who lived in the south Dublin community of Drimnagh and were brutally murdered last week. The pictures went out showing how Ireland was in solidarity with Poland. Of course we care. And ‘Thank God it was an isolated incident’ as Bertie said, in some inspired sound biting.

Only it wasn't isolated. Two men, both from Poland, allegedly refused to buy some youths alcohol from an off license in Drimnagh. Walking home, they were followed by those youths, one of whom had gone home and returned with a screwdriver. The two men were stabbed in the neck and head respectively and died of their injuries early last week. The reasons are unclear. The Polish community, hard working and often reticent, don’t seem to be the focus of a racist attack, despite reports, that the men were verbally abused as they walked home from the off-license. Thank God, it was an isolated incident.

Many are wondering what has become of our society. The turnout at the memorial service says a lot about how people feel about the event. Then again, the behaviour of our young people says even more, and this reflects more accurately how we interact as a society, as opposed to reflecting our aspirations. A visible minority of our young people are out of control, and some might say that violence is now a staple means of social interaction. As people try to come to terms with this incident, the Archbishop of Dublin has called for a community based “summit” to tackle the increase in violent crimes in Ireland. His suggestion is noble. We must debate, discuss and act upon what has the potential to become one of the defining tragedies of the last five years. Sadly, I don’t think it’s that simple, and the Archbishop's response reflects the difficulty we all have in confronting the issue of violence in our society. All the more frightening is the mess of conflicting, misleading stories and an almost total absence of cooperation to date from those young people who allegedly witnessed the tragedy.

And yet we still seek an explanation. Sociologists might tell you that some people do it to relieve their boredom and sense of isolation. Others do it to exercise some power in their lives over others, like kids pulling the legs off unfortunate spiders. Problematic is that these people aren't the ones who take part in the types of dialogue that Archbishop Martin suggested. They don't recognize their role in society, or the existence of society in the first place .

The killings may not have been racist, but also can’t be explained away as being a freak attack. Maggie Thatcher said there’s no such thing as society. True, when people act as if there is no higher sense of justice. To me it’s like believing in ghosts: if you don’t accept the idea in the first place, then it won’t be there when it should be. The next few days will tell us a lot of where we have come to, and where we may be headed.

Turkey Ahern

The Sunday papers were absolutely fizzing with stories this weekend about this, that or t’other, and the consensus seems to be that apart from carnage on our roads, a third world public transport system and social turmoil, an inert political class and myriad other problems involving guns, drugs and general mayhem, things could still be worse in Ireland. So when commenting on the state of things on our island, Gerry Adams made headlines by pointing out that Bertie Ahern might be displaying the same aptitude for government as Dustin the Turkey, Ireland's favourite puppet. It’s great to see that he is known in the UK, and that Gerry has an appetite for pop culture in other countries. Either that or he wrote all of his script in the sense that professional footballers all write their own autobiographies. I suspect he probably needed some clarification. No, a party hack explains, Dusin is not the wee bloke from "Rain Man", he's a puppet on children's TV, and the line will absolutely get a laugh.

Gerry's analogy, as populist as it was cringe inducing, works in the sense that both like act as if they were fluffy and a bit of a lark. However, whereas Bertie the Turkey is facing the prospect of being told to 'pluck off' by his party, Dustin the Turkey is very much flavour of the month at the moment in Ireland and even has the blessing of Bob Geldof.

Importantly, our endeavour to win back that most coveted of cultural prizes, the Eurovision song contest, is based on a popular vote, which backed this offering over more traditional acts. Not everyone is happy, though, and the reactions in the media suggest that maybe we chose wrong, and that sending our esteemed bird of cultural commentary to Belgrade might demean the event. After all, Dana is upset because she fears this will be the outcome. I didagree. The choice is inspired, and not without precedent.

The Eurovision song contest has for years been the repository of lame acts, moments of sheer genius and the occasional display of amusing disdain at what is as high-brow as a Butlin’s talent show. How else do you explain the Zero Mostel lookalike who won it last year for Serbia? Or Dana International, the transsexual who I reckon was actually Cher who represented Israel (a European country?) Dustin is just part of that. He’s the kid who plays a rude song at a school concert just to see if he’ll get detention or at least a few giggles from his mates. He won’t get douze pointes for Ireland as his song’s chorus suggests, but he might relieve Terry Wogan of the car crash television he has to endure every year. I hope Terry will be sniggering, knowing Dustin probably shouldn’t but there are worse things in this world than a musical novelty act. Bon chance, Dustin!!