Celtic Snake Slithers In

Editorial / Periscope - Niall O'Dowd

Celtic Snake Slithers In

August 28, 2008

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

DINGLE, Co. Kerry — It has rained so much this summer that the local joke here is that the entire Irish nation deserved an Olympic gold for swimming. Another joke concerns the Dublin football team recently defeated by Tyrone in the All-Ireland quarterfinal. The public address announcer asks Dublin supporters to save their tears as they will merely add to the bad flooding in the Dublin area already.

It has been that kind of summer in Ireland. A few miles from Dingle, where I was staying, a landslide brought about by rains sent a bog on the side of a mountain crashing into a river below and destroyed salmon stocks for years.

Locals had never seen or heard of a moving bog in the generations past or present. It seemed to capsulate what an extraordinary deluge of rain has hit the island from over the Atlantic this summer.

Every day the weather forecasters put their best face on the bad news, but the stacked up bands of low pressure waiting off the Irish coastline just mock their best efforts to sound even a little upbeat.

Of course global warming is being blamed, but the reality is Ireland has had many summers like this in the past. I remember two in the 1980s that were comparable to this one in terms of wetness.

Meanwhile, during a day at the Tralee races, the sheer intensity of the rain meant that all the time most of the patrons were kept inside, resulting in the races being run before eerily silent stands.

I felt bad for the Rose of Tralee contestants who arrived at the races in the middle of the downpour and were quickly ushered off into the buses again. I saw the Rose of South Australia and the Dallas rose sheltering under a huge umbrella and wondered what they must have thought of this Irish climate.

Last week when I was there, the sun did break through on the Thursday and Friday, allowing one local in Dingle to congratulate me on sharing the only two days of summer with him. It had been raining, he said since the end of May, and he was only slightly exaggerating.

Adding to the general gloom is the specter of large unemployment lines and job losses as the economy slows and fears of a recession are rampant. Phoenix magazine in Dublin dubbed the new era the Celtic Snake, as against the Celtic Tiger, in the sense of the game Snakes and Ladders (Chutes and Ladders over here), with everyone who had scrambled to the top of the pile suddenly starting to slither down again.

Certainly real estate has been a big casualty of the tougher times. Real prices may be down as much as 50% over a year ago, one agent told me. Another said succinctly that “nothing is selling,” except the houses at the very top of the market.

It is easy to understand why. Prospective buyers know the values will continue to fall. For sale signs are everywhere, and it is rumored that some of the biggest property developers in the country may be in deep trouble.

Of course Ireland is still incredibly more prosperous than when I last lived here in the 1970s. Everything is relative, and the unemployment rate is still well below that of many other European Union countries.

What is happening in the housing market is a necessary correction to the madness that had infected that sector over the past half-decade or so.

No doubt with the dollar finally strengthening Americans may be ready to come back too and give a massive boot to the tourism sector. Many have effectively been priced out by sky-high costs and, regrettably, price gouging by some vendors.

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen has been dealt a tough hand, but he is certainly up for the challenge. In mid-September he is addressing the nation in a state of the country speech. It will be interesting to see what remedies he decides to adopt.

Meanwhile, the summer that never was is drawing to a close. The Irish are a resilient group and they will get over these latest setbacks, both economic and weather wise.

But when I landed in 80 degrees in sunny New York on Sunday it was hard not to feel better about things. A little sunshine goes a long way.

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