"Who’s for Cocaine with their Champagne?” A
line from a Hollywood movie? No. A question at a smart dinner
part
in Dublin, Ireland where a certain section of the population;
the new young, mega rich, have taken to the high life — big
time. This little Emerald Isle, where some of the old
people can recall their grandparents talking of the great famine
of 1847, which saw millions die and hundreds of thousands take
the ships to America and a new life, now boasts as much illegal
drug activity per head of population as any giant city in the
USA.
There used to be a sort of joke that Ireland was always about
ten years behind the rest of the world, meaning that we had the
swinging sixties in the seventies, and so on. That may have been
true, but it was a gentle place to live, and safe if you weren’t
in a religious institution. But quite a few of us had relations
in America of course, and when TV first came to the island, a
lot of the programmes we received were from the US, so we were,
in a sense, always in touch with the bigger world.
By the year 2000, that unforgettable millennium year of partying,
Ireland’s economy was at an all time high. It had grown
at an unbelievable rate within a few short years. Called the ‘Celtic
Tiger,‘ a phrase invented by a witty journalist, the phenomenal
growth described an emerging Ireland, a little magical land about
to take on the world. After years of some ups and truly appalling
downs, peaks and troughs, we appeared to be on the crest of a
terrific wave, and to begin with everyone loved it.
We had the most distinguished President ever in Mary Robinson.
A brilliant and clever woman of true international stature, a
former Senior Counsel, Senator and well known campaigner for
women’s rights for years, she brought a new glow of humanity
and a freshness of style to the role of President of Ireland.
She built on the political and cultural links with other countries
and cultures.
Mary Robinson was the first head of state to visit
Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide there. She was
also the first head of state to visit Somalia following the crisis
there in 1992, receiving the CARE Humanitarian Award in recognition
of her efforts for that country. She later became the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights. And yet, with all her greatness
recognised elsewhere, she was a stone in the shoe of so many
of our very crooked
male politicians.
As news of the boom spread internationally, the rest of the
world appeared to be watching us, fascinated. Coverage of the
good life in Ireland in foreign newspapers was fantastic. In
my case, my youngest brother lives in Japan, and to hear him
describe with some excitement the reports of our changing little
island was terrific. We would finally take our place among the
leaders, right up there with the big money.
We were the
makers of the best dairy products in the world; Kerrygold went
international,
our cheeses were winning gold medals abroad, the best smoked
salmon came from Ireland, the best cream liqueurs, the best
whiskey; Baileys and Jameson available from New York to New
Delhi. At the peak of our success the world
seemed to believe we did some things better than anybody else.
Our authors were winning awards everywhere and taking numbers
one, two and three spots on the Irish and English bestseller
lists. Maeve Binchy was, as usual, outselling everyone and having
her books turned into films in Hollywood and chosen by Oprah
for her book club.
The fabulous Riverdance magically tapped danced
its way around the world. The biggest rock band in the world
was now Irish as the concerts of Bono and the boys in the group
U2
sold out all over the planet. Coach parties were taken up tiny
quiet roads in the south county Dublin, so that the fans could
take pictures of the big iron gates guarding the rock stars’ houses.
When Irish football fans traveled abroad to international soccer
matches, they were welcomed, whereas riot
police met the fans travelling from our neighbouring island wherever
they arrived. This is because a small well-organised group brings
disgrace on the entire English nation whenever they travel, with
their peculiar facility for arriving in a beautiful continental
city and breaking the place up within hours.
International singing stars flew into Dublin, Cork and Belfast
regularly. Their concerts were sold out within hours, the tickets
costing a fortune. From Tony Bennett to Andrea Bocelli, people
flocked to them all. The ladies who lunch flew to New York to
shop at the weekends. ‘I love to make those credit cards
sizzle in Macy’s,‘ one shopper memorably announced.
Money was no problem. Huge international banks employed vast
numbers
of the extremely young and talented workforce and they were
earning serious money. A financial services centre second to
none sprung
up right in the city centre. New buildings, vast things, some
quite beautiful, white bricked shiny steel and chrome with
millions of sparkling glass windows now rose up along the quay
walls of
the river Liffey. They housed the new rich, with some of the
penthouses valued up to two million, cheek by jowl with world
banks and ultra chic
minimalist hotels. Nearly all the old apartment blocks had been
demolished to make way for these financial wizards and their
work and living places.
The young Irish people who had formed their own companies were,
for the most part, unbelievably successful. Especially in the
IT sector. Clones of Bill Gates were everywhere. Indeed it became
absolutely commonplace to find that four people at a table of
eight in a typical Dublin restaurant could well be worth a couple
of million each. And not one of the party would necessarily be
from a background known as 'old money.' There were
a few casualties when the IT world took a tumble. People who
had been worth 60 million on paper were suddenly worth only three.
But even that added to the gaiety of the nation, as one after
another the economists hopped up on every talk show to explain
why their theories went wrong.
How wonderful the little island must have looked to people less
well off in the outside world. It must have been as dazzling
as the Emerald City looked to Dorothy and her friends in the
Wizard of Oz. In the early years of the new millennium
it must have seemed that there was nothing that a person living
and working in this magical place couldn’t achieve. People
of all nationalities flocked to the island bringing with them
dreams of a fabulous lifestyle waiting for them in that tiny
dot on the world map.
Some of the newcomers were absolutely wonderful and we adored
going into their exciting and exotic smelling shops. But not
all our new residents were friendly types, opening business and
contributing new colour. Some of the people who came to stay
did so with more sinister motives. Some rather menacing Eastern
Europeans were found to be running Mafia-type operations in
the larger Irish cities. They did not bring their wonderful culture
to share with us. They brought a squalid prostitution, sometimes
posing as lap dancing, on a level we hadn’t seen before,
and they also brought the drugs to keep the girls doped up to
the eyeballs. And, to the outrage of our home grown underworld,
they even brought some more drugs, hoping to sell them on the
streets, as if we hadn’t enough in Dublin already.
This was a part of our life that had not been publicised by
the media abroad. Dublin was, and had been for a long time, simply
awash with the stuff. Parts of the city had been decimated by
the deaths of young people from drugs. Mothers were regularly
interviewed, and sobbed as they talked to our most popular radio
talk show hosts, desperately trying to make sense of one, or
sometimes, incredible as it sounds, two of their children having
died from drug abuse. Babies were being born already drug addicts
in some of the major Dublin hospitals all through the nineteen
nineties. Born to extremely young girls, some as young as fourteen,
all addicted to heroin. Irish drug dealers seriously resented
any outsiders trying to muscle in on the action as they had provided
the heroin on the streets for years. Yes, in Ireland we certainly
had more than enough home grown gangsters. And did they live
in style.
Fantastic properties worth millions, both in the cities and
the countryside were now found to have been bought with money
made in the world of narcotics. One of these murderers ordered
the killing of one of our top brave women journalists, who was
shot dead as she sat in
her car at traffic lights. Very often the wife of one of these
men under investigation would be photographed on the front page
of the tabloids proclaiming she knew nothing of her husband’s
business affairs and that he was a really good family man. At
times, the errant husband might be found living
in the south of Spain with someone
the same
age as his daughter.
The last few years we have had tribunal after tribunal exposing
male politicians who had been lining their pockets with ‘brown
bag’ money - a thank you to a crooked politician who had
masterminded the rezoning of land. Resulting in fortunes being
made for the landowners and builders, and communities left to
fend for themselves on the outskirts of the bigger cities. Hundred
of thousands of houses were built, but without shopping or recreation
facilities for the inhabitants.
It now became a matter of public record that these people, elected
to run the country, had been buying even bigger estates than
the IT millionaires and drug dealers. And keeping their money
in secret Cayman Island bank accounts, while the rest of us struggled
along paying the outrageous charges of the main banks; charges
we could do nothing about. These institutions were making millions
in profits each year, their directors, some of the very people
with the Cayman Island bank accounts, were being paid staggering
salaries for their services. At this time, the gap between rich
and poor in Ireland had become simply awesome.
These tribunals, which are still running, were getting down
to the nitty gritty and exposing to us exactly how some in government
had for years supplemented their incomes in order to lead such
amazingly expensive lifestyles,
despite earning only modest government salaries. And these were
a number of the men who had made such offensive remarks about
Mary Robinson becoming president — one of their number — himself
now under scrutiny for allegedly pocketing vast amounts of ‘brown
bag’ money,
memorably saying she seemed to have ‘a new found interest
in her family’ now that she was President — a reference
to the years she had worked so successfully in the legal world.
For some of these men the old saying ‘keep them barefoot
and pregnant’ still applies.
Life for most of us had become just a series of journeys from
home to work and back again. Three hours travelling was about
the average time people spent in cars or on public transport.
The mantra of the employers had become ‘we can always squeeze
a bit more of out them.‘ And that was certainly true. For
extra money, they could indeed always squeeze more out of us.
The price of absolutely everything we needed to live had rocketed
up and out of all proportion and so extra income was always welcome.
It says something that one of my brothers finds Dublin more expensive
than Tokyo where he lives, and my partner’s son who lives
in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is always horrified at restaurant
and bar prices when he visits Ireland.
The ‘Celtic Tiger’ began to demand more food, as
it were. And the biggest economic boom ever on the little island
simply wore us out. For those of us women who had worked all
through the various ‘down’ years as well as this
boom time, we looked at ourselves, becoming wretched in some
cases, and silently screamed ‘it’s all been just
too much!’ Whether married, divorced, living the single
life, with or without children, it had all taken its toll. Indeed,
a popular and very successful businesswoman, who broke the glass
ceiling to become vice-president of one of our international
companies, made the very sentence ‘It’s not easy
being a Woman’ the theme of her humorous, sharp, tongue
in cheek speech at her fiftieth birthday celebration, attended
by most of her male colleagues.
Whilst not for one moment dismissing the rest of the world and
its problems, in the now sprawling capital city of Dublin, home
to almost one and a half million people, it seemed as if everyone
who had worked for thirty years or more, whatever their circumstances,
was utterly exhausted. Friends gave up meeting mid week. Even
phoning became a no-no after nine o’clock. No one now had
time or energy to care too much about anyone else. It was everyone
for themselves. This was a new and a very nasty feeling. And
time to go time for me.
I miss nothing and I know I made the
very best decision. It’s not for everyone, of course. The
area of France where I live now would perhaps have been too quiet
for me twenty or thirty years ago, but it’s perfect now.
And Paris, still the most civilised city in the world, is just
a train journey away.
Who could ask for more?
