Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat View Post
The Irish insolence of wanting to share the table with the grown ups has a price. Like children, the Irish need punishment to remind them of the order of things. Your priest will explain it to you, the beauty and clarity of servitude. Explain there's a reward in the next life if you endure your slavery in this one with docility. Explain to you why it is right your children sweat, yet live in want, while those of others feast on the products of your hands and the fruits of your land.
I'm aware that your posts on this subject are deliberately provocative, but the tone is increasingly unpleasant, Louis. It's all redolent of the same sort of schadenfreude that seems to be resurfacing in the British media.

Nonetheless, you are not alone. If there's one thing we do well, it's Catholic guilt.

Even if all the economic indicators didn't point to this sad state of affairs, our recent sporting record might have suggested it. But it was the weather that really sealed the deal for us. When's the last time we got thunder and lightning mixed with sub-zero temperatures and hail? Presumably a plague of locusts will be next. We got too cocky and God is putting us back in our box.

You see, for years, Irish people were happy to be the clowns of the world. We were like the freckly ginger kid in the corner of the class who was great fun but who never really got to hang with the blonde, sleek, superficial, popular kids. And then, like in Mean Girls, we were led to believe we could make the jump into the popular crowd. We weren't just good at "the craic" (getting drunk), suddenly we were into finance and property. So we dyed our hair blonde, we dyed ourselves orange and we joined in.

That article finishes with the one thing that is on everyone's lips here. Default. To stretch the author's metaphor, a "Carrie" moment beckons. If larger nations wish to crush us and humiliate us, fine. I see the ghostly, sneering figure of vengeance over Lisbon high on your tower. But have a care that your castle of pride is not founded on a mine with Irish explosives primed therein.

It's about time the greedy bondholders of the very financial markets that caused the crash, and now that hunt the weak for profit (weakened by giving their very children for the markets to eat, as you so colourfully suggested) find that we bite back. Time, I think, to shock the system back.

Default and be damned. What then your precious euro? What then the snide triumphalism of the markets and the powerful economies?