United by pride in their country, Manchester's Irish community remains divided over their government's actions in accepting a bailout loan from – of all places – England.
The British government are contributing £7bn to the cause, as well as chipping in to Europe’s £77bn loan. With the political system in Ireland in chaos, calls for Taoiseach Brian Cowan to call a general election are growing.
From all across Manchester, the broad Irish community bristles with vibrancy. All maintain close links to home, with many travelling back to the Emerald Isle frequently.
“The message from Ireland is that people are very angry with the politicians and feel like they've been let down,” says 33-year old Margot Power, who hails from Tipperary. “We've been hoodwinked.
“It's a big blow to Irish pride; but I've been pleasantly surprised by the British willingness to help out.”
She thinks that the Euro is partly to blame. “I lived in Ireland when the Euro was introduced, and I noticed a big rise in the cost of living. I supported it at the time. With what I know now, I think it was a mistake.”
She came over to the UK in 2002, and now works for the Irish Diaspora Foundation, which aims to help Irish communities living abroad.
“Having lived here, I can see both sides, and I can see we don't want to damage trading links. But people are very angry with the politicians.”
Michael Forde came to England from County Mayo as a teenager in 1961, and now is the head of the Irish World Heritage Centre in Cheetham Hill. He thinks the move is sensible. “Ireland is England's biggest market, bigger than China and India and Brazil combined. The deal will work both ways. There are such strong business and friendship links that the countries want to help each other. It's a win/win situation.”
Mary McGee, who runs her own Irish bar in Levenshulme, blames the politicians. “They should have taken the money out much sooner. There are no jobs in Ireland, people are packing up and leaving to come here.”
Mary came over from County Mayo when she was just a toddler, but still has friends and relatives in Ireland. “If the Euro goes, we're all in trouble.”
Deirdre Carroll, who is 66 and helps with community support, agrees that the Euro is the cause of the problems. “We shouldn't have gone into the Euro in the first place. Britain is an island, and Ireland is an island too, and they should have stayed like that.”
But Britain and Ireland should help each other out, she says. “They have always worked together, particularly on trade. You might think we don't like each other, but we get on very well.
“The package being forced on Ireland is typical of Europe. You can't be in a common institution and remain totally independent. I don't know what will happen now but it would be good if we regained some independence.
“We fought for independence from England, and are now enslaved by an even bigger creature, Europe.”
Patrick Dougherty agrees. After coming to England as a labourer in 1957, he watched helplessly as Irish sovereignty was taken away by Europe. Now aged 74, he says “we should never have joined the Euro, or Europe.
“That's what the problem has been. We were bullied into joining it and we have been bullied now we're in it.”
Lawrence Hennigan, who is 53 and runs the Levenshulme Irish Festival, thinks the move is a good one. “It's inevitable. We've seen this coming for years. Particularly in Ireland, people have seen this coming, and nobody has done anything about it.
“It's great to see the UK offering help, because a lot of UK businesses are involved in Ireland,” he says. “I don't just mean people have houses there; people have whole office blocks.
“Ireland are a very proud nation, and we are a very proud community here. With so many people coming here from Ireland, the links with Manchester have never been stronger.”
Britain is giving Ireland a loan of £7bn, which will be paid back with interest, giving Britain an ultimate profit. While Manchester's Irish community may differ over the Euro, the bailout and the politicians, they remain united around one thing – the strength of their relationship to Britain.
The Celtic tiger may have had its claws clipped. Whether it can regain its roar is a question that time, with a little help from £90bn, will answer.
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It's a very sad situation, I'm just glad that we never joined the Euro zone.
GREED PURE GREED BY SOME IN EIRE, ALSO PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER GOING TO IRELAND AND LIVEING ON WELFARE. GREED FROM THE BANKS. 48 PER CENT IN IRELAND DONT PAY ANY TAX.. SO ITS PAY BACK TIME. IF THE WORLD DOSENT LEARN FROM THIS ITS GOING TO BE BIG TROUBLE DOWN THE ROAD.
THE IRISHI VOTED AGANST JOINING THE URO BUT THE IRISH GOV SAID THEY WOULD KEEP VOTING UNTILL THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND AGREED TO JOIN .TALK ABOUT BRAINWASHING.
MICHAEL COLLINS HAS TO BE TURNING IN HIS GRAVE RIGHT NOW, ALONG WITH THE MEN OF 1916. THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR AN INDEPENDENT AND SOVEREIGN IRELAND AND FREEDOM. THE GOVERNMENT NOW IN POWER, CALL THEMSELVES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, (FIANNA FAIL) . THEY ARE NO MORE A REPUBLICAN PARTY THAN THE MAN IN THE MOON, THEY HAVE DESTROYED MY COUNTRY. RIGHT TO THIS VERY MINUTE THEY IGNORE THE WISHES OF ECONOMISTS AND THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND TO DEFAULT ON THE LOANS. WE ARE A SMALL NATION WITH AROUND 1.8 MILLION IN EMPLOYMENT, HOW ON GODS EARTH CAN WE PAY BACK TO THE IMF AT LEAST A QUARTER OF A TRILLION EURO'S.
IRELAND NEEDS A GOOD AND GREAT NEGOTIATOR TO DEAL WITH THE IMF AND THE EU. A MAN OF THE CALIBRE INTEGRITY INTELLIGENCE BRAVERY SUCH AS THAT OF MICHAEL COLLINS TO STAND UP FOR IRELAND AND IT'S PEOPLE AGAINST THE GREEDY CAPATALIST OF THE IMF AND THE EMF AND THE EU AND PUT THEM IN THEIR PLACE, ONE POSITIVE THING MAY COME OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE IRELAND IS IN AT THE MOMENT, WE MAY BE THE COUNTRY THAT PULL'S THE EUROPEAN UNION DOWN AND GET'S RID OF IT ONCE AND FOR ALL, LEAVING COUNTRIES IN EUROPE TO GO BACK TO GOVERNING THEMSELVES AND DECIDING THEIR OWN DESTINY.
BERNIE JOYCE, DUBLIN, REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.
THE TYPE IS ALL IN CAPATALIST'S AS YOU PUT IT, BECAUSE I AM IN MY HEART SHOUTING, OUR POLITICIANS ARE NOT LISTENING TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND AND I MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR TYPING IT SO.
HOW HAVE THE IRISH BEEN ON THE PIGS BACK FOR YEARS, EXPLAIN. PLEASE.
HOW IS EVERYONE ON THE TAKE IN IRELAND. EXPLAIN PLEASE.
WHY DID YOUR ENGLISH BANKS NOT REGULATE THE AMOUNTS LOANED TO IRISH BANKS..........................
IF YOUR ENGLISH BANKS GO UNDER THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME.
BERNIE JOYCE. DUBLIN, IRELAND.
I hope Ireland turn a corner and see a way out of it soon. I stayed in a cottage in Bettystown for a week last year, and even then there were some large estates of new houses that were stopped in progress.
Dublin is also one expensive city!
Irish eyes will be smiling again soon, I've little doubt.
Hindsight bias (the inclination to see events that have occured as being more predictable than they were before they took place) is a great trap. Sure, there were greedy bankers, greedy politicians and greedy property developers involved...but not all fall into that category. Many people were well-meaning and yet still made mistakes (we're only human after all). I seem to recall, only a short number of years ago at the height of the Celtic Tiger, we Irish were expressing our pride in having achieved almost top nation position financially, for quality of life and for standard of living. Given our history, even a certain arrogance at our success may have been justified. Buoyed up by the myths and realities of our success story we were happy to take all the credit (though much was due to our membership of the EU and our earlier milking of the EEC for everything we could get, paid for by Germany France and the UK)...and happy to turn a blind eye to petty corruption (in the planning system, in crooked politicians, in big business). We never totally outgrew our former "banana republic" mentality and, thanks (if that is the right word) to the Northern Ireland troubles and peace process, we took a far greater position on the world stage than our relative size ever warranted. Time to grow up and stop blaming everyone else and to retreating into stupid and counter-productive Nationalist sentiment. We have to share and care for this planet along with everyone else.The bailout help from the British may or may not be based upon self-interest rather than philanthropy but the gesture seems to have been presented as well-intended and without strings (as far as the British are concerned). I'm not so sure about the IMF. All along in this crisis successive decisions have been made in a panic (not usually the best for a good result), followed by a period of procrastination before another panic decision. Single-handedly and inadvertently we may almost have destroyed the Euro and the EU project, for which we were loyal and supportive members for several decades. But we are not wholly to blame. Yes, foolishly we borrowed too much and spent too much of that borrowed money unwisely....but there were knowing fools elsewhere who imprudently lent us too much money in the first place. Conspiracy theorists will imply wicked intent by faceless men in secret societies with plans to create a New World Order to enslave us all. Others will blame unbridled capitalism or monetarism or some other "ism". But too much of the "blame game" would eventually plunge the whole of the EU into a Balkan-style mayhem similar to the collapse of Yugoslavia. All that matters now, is where we go from here and not to take rash actions which will make the situation worse. Understandably, the sudden shock of recent events has aroused fear and anger, which can cloud rational thought and clear thinking and often be mis-directed. It is nonsense to claim that we are shamed and/or humiliated. We are not all-powerful in this world, which has become increasingly complex and inter-related. There should be no shame in our apparent ineptitude. In the past two decades we have proven ourselves to be educated, intelligent, hard-working. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent". So look to our virtues and assets; friendliness, kindness, generousity of spirit, good family ties. Briefly we have thrown ourselves into conspicuous consumption and an affluence which turned out to be built on sand and it has rebounded on us. But also, we have learned a lot. Not everything was reckless; we have improved infrastructure, improved housing standards, improved communications, etc. We had only just begun to seriously damage our environment. We just need to pause for a little while and then decide what kind of new Ireland we really want. I don't think we can or should go back to the hedonism and extravagance of the past two decades. Provided that a fairer society and distribution of wealth can be created, that nobody suffers extreme hardship, starvation or homelessness, is a little frugality such a bad thing?
they bomb the uk YES let them have our money wnen were in debt so bloody wrong
There is no bailout of Ireland or the Irish. The bailout is for bondholders throughout the world who invested in Irish banks. My friends and I (who all work in moderately paid jobs) never got anything from the "Celtic Tiger". We had no second houses or whatever. Basically, the banks lent money to property developers; when they ran out of money to loan, they borrowed from mainly German banks and loaned that to the developers. The construction industry went bust and the developers defaulted. If capitalism was followed to the letter, the Irish banks would've defaulted to the German banks. But no, the right-wing b******* in Fianna Fail have decided, that my friends and I should pick up the tab. I paid a lot of tax last year. It is forecasted that by 2012 I will be paying an extra 4,000 euros a year extra. This year my holidays consisted of two weekends in Manchester. That's looking in danger now.
I'm from an Irish family and grew up in Manchester . I have spent a good deal of time in Ireland in the last 15 years and what I have seen is more or less due to rapid economic expansion at an almost unprecedented level. What happens when that occurs is that a sense of "over confidence" occurs. This is an extremely dangerous psyche for a small country that is trying hard to prosper. The banks get over confident, the economy grows rapidly so the banks can raise additional funds more or less when they need them and businesses also get over ambitious and borrow like crazy.
I suppose it's easy in hindsight but frankly I can't think that if the right sort of regulations had been introduced at the time of this growth that the Government of the day would have been thanked for it. So in order to learn there has to be pain first it would seem.