The Orphans of Ireland

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/the-orphans-of-ireland/

In this opinion piece written by Timothy Egan he writes openly about how Ireland, a country forgotten by many, is suffering greatly in the economics department. I was immediately drawn to this article because many of my ancestors were Irish and one day I hope to visit there. Egan writes about how Ireland has been going through quite a rollercoaster ride in the recent years, going from poverty to wealth in the span of a bit over a decade. As Egan writes, “If the rush to riches was very un-Irish, this country is now back to something more familiar — a state of misery.” I have to say, I myself have excluded Ireland when thinking about how economic troubles are affecting the world. Mainly I think everyone just thinks of the US, China and perhaps England when discussing anything about world troubles. This OP-ED, however, goes to a place that we may not think of, but is hurting just the same. It was also very interesting to read about how Ireland’s people have become wealthy almost overnight, buying nice apartments and driving nice cars when a few years prior, as one comment on this article said, “A mere 15 years ago I was shocked to see children in downtown Dublin begging, “pennies, pennies,” unlike the capital cities of the rest of western Europe. More recently, I was amazed to see how wealthy Irish people suddenly seemed…”
Overall, this article really shocked me, and made me sad. Ireland has been through tough times over the past centuries, with religious troubles, famines and now this. If I had not read this OP-ED I would still be unaware of how our economic troubles are spreading to places around the world, places everyone thought could, “…never fall off those cliffs into the sea; a nation of barely 4 million people could defy gravity.”