By Another weekend has arrived, like wasn’t yesterday Monday? This corona stuff is some serious shit alright, phew!
Currently corona virus lockdown is still in operation on the island of Ireland, no breaking news there. Our weather has been quite nice, sunny clear days and mild evenings and nights. The kind of weather that we are not really used to in Ireland. Although there is forecast of some snow and cold conditions to return soon after the weekend, at least it has been nice for a while.
There was a time not too long ago that many Irish families would head off for a little sun in countries like Portugal or spain. This time of year being Easter holiday time and pre covid, children would be off school for a couple of weeks and it was a great last minute holiday bargain that used to take many off on holiday somewhere warm and sunny. Not for the lockdown times or the pandemic though. These days of even dreaming of a sunny warm holiday have been sucked out of the Irish public, sucked out of them by the long haul pandemic lockdown.
The saga that covid-19 has become. A political stance, well finger pointing stance, well actually I wish to score some political points for my opinion. The stance being, we here in Ireland have become so reactionary to every little report of covid cases that we have no final exit strategy to get out of lockdown.. It is almost like our government prefer to hide and shy away from responsibility so much so that there are new policies coming out of nowhere these days. None of which appear to have anything to do with making Ireland any better or any new tactics to make remedies to long ongoing disasters across the public sector. Too many to list here.
Perhaps you would like some specifics for the political browny points. Perhaps I should put myself forward and make this my campaign policy, call it policy busters or somerhing like that.
Child abuse within the child protection agency & system.
Homelessness crisis, looking closely at the nature of and immediate remedy.
Politician accountability & corruption.
Health service and entire HSE revamp from the top on down.
Cronyism, corruptuon & illegal back handers among all levels of government, local and state.
Mental health support network.
Stamp out abuse of every nature, workplace, home (adult or children), persons in positions of power, systemic abuse across government offices and religious organisations.
Fishery protection agency and the rights to our waters and the rights & entitlements of Irish fishermen.
Support and care systems to all disadvantaged persons. By birth, by age, by difficulty. A non discriminatory genuine system required.
Drug & alcohol rehabilitation and the entire nature of support systems including mental health.
Youth organisations and programs statewide inclusion of and stamp out all neglect.
Laws and sentencing to the entire judicial system. A crime that carries leniency can never be stamped out.
No no, I am not in any way suggesring the above are easy tasks to consider. I highlight them to point the finger and bring an awareness that the excuse that has been to hide behind covid-19 and the pandemic have brought about little progress in any of the areas I mentioned. And of course to score “political points”.
The real reason for my post today and to offer you a weekend read and a point of pause to your weekend vibe Ireland. And it might take a minute to tie it all together too.
The quarantine debacle. Like every ounce of how the pandemic has been handled by authorities of government in Ireland has been a complete shambles. The hiding that I speak of has seen very little new approaches to any of the social issues I have mentioned above. There appears to be an epidemic of another nature that is spreading rapidly among elected officials of complete delusional mandates. The kind of thing that one can only imagine sounds like this in their heads. “if I introduce something new right now, perhaps it will pass and became our way of life and then I will be remembered for that one iconic thing. How about I ask everybody to move to the country and work from home, yeah I will get european funds and all. We can call it the Leitrim lash up or something. It would be cool of me, go me”.
You may think this a laughable type concept to imagine. I am actually seeing it and hearing it play out on daily news bulletins from our government buildings.
The peach though, we say that when something is super de duper. The peach of it all, Ireland is an island nation and we can only be accessed by sea or by air. Cool, you understand what an island is. This perhaps has been our biggest strategic advantage against a pandemic and we squandered it.13 months later Ireland as a nation is still in a level 5 lockdown, we have mandatory quarantine for incoming travellers (all entrants to the country actually excluding essential workers). Please note that I have pointed out to you that these measures were introduced 13 months in to a pandemic on an island country.
The peach of the whole thing is that there are two whoppers of mistakes that our “non elected” officials have brought to the country. It actually turns out that the freedom of European nationals is something Ireland cannot take away and so as a member country of the European Union, our government top positions of ministers could not figure this out prior to thinking they were gonna have the greatest saving idea ever before implementing the measures of mandatory quarantine for incoming visitors to our island.
That was the first mistake. The second and the real fundamental stuff of our island nation shows a much deeper issue at play within our government offices. Keeping in mind of course that our country remains in a level 5 lockdown status due to the pandemic 13 months on from onset. The doooooozy of dooozies though,,,,,,,
Ireland has been a country of welcoming visitors since the beginning of time. Our country is quite beautiful in scenery, the nature that surrounds you is magnificent on the island of Ireland. Many of these settings have been to the fore naturally of late as we say goodbye to the month of March. Spring has really sprung and the sun is moving further up to the northern hemisphere. We are beginning to enjoy the flowers and tress beginning to bud and flower, we are enjoying later evenings of brightness. These are the very essence of why people come to our country to visit, Ireland and her beauty. 40 shades of green.
The cosy fire in the evening inside of a country pub while live irish music is played. The fresh fish dishes which are full of flavour washed down with a creamy pint of Guinness. The sun setting out across the Atlantic while a cool airflow from the ocean below rubs your face and cheeks atop the cliffs of moher along her west coast, yes these are the things people come to Irleand for. A short drive from the cliffs can bring you to Galway and you can enjoy a night life that is vibrant and street music along pedestrian streets where boutique shops and pubs hold a thousand welcomes. Yup this is why people come to Ireland. This is Ireland.
So what’s the catch?
The pandemic lockdown is bringing a country to it’s knees. The pubs and restaraunts have been mandatory closed for a long time. We do not want visitors to bring any more virus to our country. We do not want jobs in the hospitality industry to exist any more. The pandemic is crumbling a nation steeped in history, steeped in historic memories of when and how the famous of the world came to visit and where they sat and drank their iconic Guinness. Yup, all gone. No more.
Ireland is not a wealthy country in terms of natural resources. We do not have gold producing mines, we do not have oil producing wells, we do not have a massive forestry, we do not have diamond mines, we do not have any high ticket items naturally in our lands. What we do have and what we have always had is a spirit. We have a magical air that flows in from the Atlantic Ocean. A natural sleep aid by way of roasted hops in a creamy beverage they call Guinness. Some of the finest beef in the world to offer you a tasty meal. What we do have is natural beauty in every roadway, motorway or country lane way. We have beauty beyond what my words can describe. Ireland is a gem, a true gem. This is our natural resource. These are what we have to offer to the world and in return for decades we have exploited our natural resource quite well and in return we receive money from our visitors. That is right, money. We as a nation here on the island of Ireland have depended upon our tourism for a long nunber or years.
The pandemic has done what to our country?
Here it is, to put the icing on the cake, the cherry on top. Our government has closed the pubs and restaraunts, for over a year and now in month 13 for our country an introduction to mandatory quarantine upon arrival. Our natural resource, our last little hope of some tourists coming. The last glimmer of a summer to remember post covid-19. Our economy has been devastated and a European hand out does not seem anywhere on the horizon as all other countries have suffered too.
The doozy is to make a deterrent to anyone wanting to visit Ireland. In order to deal with the covid-19 pandemic we have now 13 months later decided to try and close off our boarders to visitors.
Moronic, brain dead and plain old stupid on the part of our government. It is not the pandemic that has brought these new rules and regulations. These have been brought about by the same people who will increase a broken spirited nation’s taxes. This is the cherry on top. Our pandemic answers have been “close everything, hope for it to go away”. This has been our nation’s answer to every scandal to ever hit the government body.
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