We were talking about the West of Ireland and agreed that there were few greater gastronomic pleasures than a slowly and lovingly poured pint of Guinness accompanied by a generous helping of oysters, in a village restaurant overlooking the sea where peace comes dropping slow: where exertion is left to the bee-loud glade and anyone with any get up and go, got up and went several decades ago. ‘Beware too much glib romanticism,’ said one of our number. ‘You might be talking about some charming little place in Kerry, which could turn out to be a significant recruiting station for the IRA, sending plenty of young men with get up and go to go out and kill. Forget Innisfree: what about “As though to die by gunshot were/ the best play under the sun.” ’
Ireland not only produces more Guinness than it can consume; the same applies to history. That said, there was a wary optimism among the indomitable Irishry around the table. Wiser and more cautious than in the days of the Celtic Tiger, they were also uneasy because Sinn Fein is lying second in the opinion polls; that tiger still has claws. Even so, there was general agreement that the Irish economy is recovering. Ireland has two advantages. First, its Catholicism has a strong puritanical strain and when the markets imploded, a lot of the bog-trotters thought that their country was getting its just deserts. ‘We were never meant to have it that good; we were bound to be made to pay for our pleasures.’ This has helped the current Taoiseach, Enda Kenny — perhaps the most impressive PM Ireland has had — to sustain an austerity programme far tougher than in the UK: a tiger to a pussycat.
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