I don't know if there's a way to embed this...
http://www.rte.ie/tv/latelate/av_20090206.html?2488947,null,228
Anyway, much as I would like to get off to a balanced and considered start to posting on this blog (thanks for the invite, Seamus), I'm afraid it's going to be a matter of barely suppressed rage. It's a depressing state of affairs when we must turn to Éamonn Dunphy to add some sense to the national conversation.
Since there's not a whole lot I can say without the bile rising, I'll limit my remarks to the perspective of an emigrant, who had been hoping to return at some point, but now fears that the Irish economy will not even begin to recover until the US and UK do so sufficiently to take in a new wave of Irish workers.
Firstly, I've been hearing a very great deal about the clip, and Kenny himself preens about the effect of a similar panel on the general election. Has the LLS somehow returned to a central position in the national psyche?
Secondly, does anybody at all buy Harris' take on emigration? It's certainly the case that in recent years it has tended to be voluntary - mine certainly was. But why on earth would he suppose the massive forced emigration which the economic disaster is about to bring on will have more in common with that than with the dehumanising and debilitating misery of the 1980s? Why would anybody think it germane?
A final thought regarding Pat Kenny's comment at the end. "What do we remember about the 1980s, the dole queues or the sporting successes?" That's a "let them eat cake" moment, if ever I heard one.
"Unfocussed anger"? Mine is pretty much pin-sharp at this point.
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The Late Late is not the force it was, but the explosion in media in Ireland obscures the fact that RTE, and specifically RTE's news and current affairs output, is hugely influential. RTE One, whether on the TV or the wireless, is many people's default setting, and more reliable port of call for news and information.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of investigative reporting Prime Time Investigates is one of the few games in town.
The national mood is hardening, especially with this drip feed of GUBU news about the banks. From a sense that the whole world is going through this so of course we are, we are moving to realising that a relatively small group of specific individuals have an awful lot to do with our specific woes. Rather than just some anonymous market failure, it is becoming clear that cronyism, corruption and what should be, even if it isn't, criminality were at play. The sums being talked about are so staggering that really the private sector versus public sector stuff is in the ha'penny place.