Ireland

So spake the Taioseach, a Mr Enda Kenny of County Mayo, on Sunday night. Difficult choices are never easy. There is something near-fabulous about the phrase. It has certainly prokoked Fintan O’Toole most severely. He’s in rasping form this week Savour the phrase. Hold it to the light. Swirl it round the glass. Stick your nose in deep and inhale the rich aromas of full-bodied absurdity. Get the pungent whiff of carmelised cliche and curdled smugness. Imagine the work that went into crafting it, the bleary-eyed, caffeine-soaked speechwriters in their lonely eyrie, in the early hours of Sunday morning, running through the variations: hard choices are seldom soft; nasty things

The symbolism of this is pretty dire. These are still times for bitter melancholy in Ireland and many a Dubliner has rarely felt as republican as he does now that the state’s sovereignty* is, shall we say, not what once it was. This, a friend says, is just another tale of life “under the occupation”: Taoiseach Enda Kenny has rejected reports that details of next month’s Budget, including a planned hike in the VAT rate, were shown to German officials yesterday. Mr Kenny met chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin yesterday after which reports emerged that the Irish Government was planning raise the top rate of VAT by 2 per cent

Even by the lofty standards of delusional politicians, Bertie Ahern remains a man apart. The former Taoiseach who once boasted that “the boom times are getting boomier” has a novel theory to explain Ireland’s economic bust: it was the fault of the newspapers. Apparently they were too interested in writing about the curious way in which Bertie’s life was funded by a number of generous and wealthy pals and businessmen. If they hadn’t been persecuting the cutest hoor on the northside perhaps they’d have noticed what else was going on. Really, this is what the man says: Bertie Ahern has called for an investigation into the media for what he

I think it’s tiresome the way countries in desperate economic trouble are treated as lab rats by pundits far away whose sole interest in their travails lies in their providing an argument to buttress favoured policies back home. It’s a pretty grim game, really. So when Paul Krugman spends a summer writing about Ireland’s enforced austerity he’s not really writing about Ireland at all. He’s arguing about the United States and never mind what the hell happens to the poor, miserable Irish. The worse things go for them, the better they go for the Krugman school. Tyler Cowen documents all this rather neatly. This doesn’t mean that a return to

Martin McGuinness’s campaign for the Irish Presidency is, of course, a disgusting affair. How could it ever be otherwise? But even by Sinn Fein’s grim standards, it’s off to a loathsome, disingenuous beginning. Speaking on Irish radio this morning, McGuinness complained that a coterie of “West Brits” in the Dublin media are out to get him. Only someone whose loyalty to the Republic might be questioned by the more rancid brand of nationalist, you see, would be vulgar enough to bring up McGuinness’s murderious past. Indeed, it’s just “people who are hostile to my candidacy” who have the gall to mention McGuinness’s IRA past. This is strange since, as Fintan