I was escaping.
The job was quit, no regrets. I packed up the house and sold my possessions.
Friends said their goodbyes in a round of unforgettable farewell parties
that made me recall how long it had taken to create that warm circle I
was now leaving. Tearful goodbyes were said to Sprite and Abou at
Chicago’s O’Hare airport as they were packed off to strange homes in distant
cities. The separation from my cats was, strangely, the most difficult
as it was impossible to say to them “Hey, e-mail me!” or even, “I’ll
miss you.”
I was going
to Ireland to discover one of Europe’s culture troves, one of the richest
mines of all the arts: Dublin. Staring out the plane’s dirty window,
enjoying my first free moments in weeks, I considered my brief trip to
Dublin four years previously.
Never had
I imagined I would be making it my home. France was the country of
my dreams. Dublin was full of litter and had none of the sophistication
of Paris or London. Architecturally, I’d seen little to commend it.
Worse, I’d been robbed twice in a four day visit: once at the
B & B, and once on the street. I recalled the groups of solemn, carrot-headed
children I saw begging in Dublin, the anti-abortion posters plastered to
buildings, the dark and oily Liffey, the gloomy skies.
What was I doing?
And yet
this was the place that spawned the monumental new playwrights Conor
McPherson and Martin McDonagh, and the exquisite poetry of Seamus Heaney,
not to mention the past giants: Wilde, Yeats, Beckett, Keane,
and Joyce. As a director, I was entering what was reputed to be one
of the most creative places in the world. It was also the home of
two seminal theatres, the Abbey and the Gate.
I would find
more funding, more public support for my plays, wonderful actors, writers
on the verge of discovery, and a burgeoning film industry which would throw
open its arms when I was ready to segue into film directing. And
what about that oft-bandied phrase “the Celtic Tiger”? Surely Ireland had
changed in four years?
What I saw
was not change, but radical transformation. Mark, an Irish friend
who picked me up from the airport with his two energetic children, John
and Miriam, drove me to a large home outside Dublin. Mark, a computer
programmer, tells me that the day after he bought the site for 30,000 pounds,
he was offered 40,000 pounds for it. The market hasn’t looked back
since. The home he built for 100,000 three years ago is now selling
for 300,000. He hasn’t even finished building this one, but what
the hell? He’ll build another. With that kind of profit,
he can pay off all his debts and have some left over to invest in the booming
Irish stock market. For many like Mark, the Celtic Tiger has brought
work and hope in the future.
In the 1980’s
Ireland was one of the poorest EU states, but for the last four years,
Ireland has had the fastest growing economy in Europe. Unemployment is
at an 8-year low, and Ireland’s workforce is increasingly skilled and well-educated.
Women are
entering the workforce in ever greater numbers (not coincidentally, divorce
was recently legalized). And for the first time ever, the number
of Irish returning home after long stints abroad exceeds the number leaving.
As an article in The Economist put it, “For more than a century the
view of Ireland that the Irish knew best was looking back from a boat heading
somewhere else.”
The reversal
is so dramatic that government officials are busily trying to deal
with a population explosion, a housing shortage , and the necessity of
revamping all transportation in and out of Dublin. In the 10 months
I have been here, I have seen just two children begging, not the groups
of children that are seared into my memory. Litter is still rampant, but
city officials are mounting an aggressive campaign against it for the first
time, most likely because it has become the number one tourist gripe.
Not all is
upbeat, however. A cabbie I recently encountered complained bitterly of
exploding rents and property prices, traffic nightmares, and low wages.
Irish opinion seems to be divided, with equal passion, on the issue of
the Celtic Tiger. Many feel, like him, that the average worker is not benefiting
from Ireland’s entry into the economic big leagues.
Profits
are not trickling down, and it appears (to those who are paying attention)
that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. 34% of the
population have incomes below the poverty line, compared to 30% a decade
ago. Will those who are “uneconomic” continue to drift into the margins?
I remarked
to a friend that Ireland of today reminds me of the U.S.A. in the 1980’s.
The governor of Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison was quoted as saying that Ireland
has entered an era of “me-ism…where the weak are left behind.” He
cites these statistics: 80% of Mountjoy’s prisoners left school before
16, and 90% were unemployed at the time of their arrest. Also, w ages in
Ireland are well below those of other EU workers, while rents in Dublin
are rising at an alarming rate (35 - 40% in the past year).
Property prices
have escalated by as much as 41% in a single year for a second-hand home,
and 32% for a new home.
It spells
a bleak picture for the unlucky and the less privileged.
Spiralling
property prices have made millionaires out of many ordinary folks who bought
red-brick houses in south Dublin between the 1960’s and the 1980’s.
And yet, the well-employed children of these ordinary folks are finding
it difficult to buy homes, even with two incomes. It’s difficult
to measure or describe the effect sudden wealth has had on Irish society.
Independence from Britain didn’t come until 1922, and until the 1960’s,
Ireland was not an industrialized country. Those lucky enough to benefit
from Ireland’s boom have a glow of confidence about them; they are daring
to want things and they are enjoying luxuries such as dining out. Dubliners
are pulling their city up to European standards of sophistication, style,
and entertainment. It no longer seems a sin to articulate one’s ambitions,
or to be proud of one’s achievements. The national character is undergoing
a makeover, a process which is accelerated in the cities.
Not all
returning emigrants appreciate how Ireland has changed in the last few
years. One couple, who had lived in Boston for 20 years, returned
home, hearing of the good times--only to leave again, broke, after less
than a year. They felt Ireland had become like America, but
with a lower standard of living. It was not the place they remembered,
and they couldn’t afford it . The days of long vacations, reasonable
hours, and short commutes are no more, at least not in Dublin.
Another Irish
friend, who lived in Chicago for 3 years before returning to Galway, feels
that the Irish way of life is alive and well—but not in the cities.
He has bought a bargain-priced house in a remote area outside Galway, in
a one-pub town . There he has gotten to know local farmers, whom
he says seem increasingly disconsolate. The number of small farms
is dwindling, victims of competition with the U.K. and other nations. The
Irish way of life will indeed change if this pattern continues. Only
10% of Ireland’s workers are now in the farming sector, and farming is
but a small part of the economy. But rural charm is still, as my
mother rightly concluded after her visit, “what Ireland does best.” What
will become of this lovely green isle if agriculture loses all economic
importance, and multinationals rule the day?
Ireland
is undoubtedly more supportive of the arts than the America but this, too,
will be tested in the coming years. There are government sponsored
studios available to fine artists, and government funded training for those
who wish to enter the television and film industry. Since 1992 the
Arts Council increased its spending by 100%. Compare that to the NEA.!
The Irish are also creative about weaving artists into the fabric of daily
life: for example, short films are aired on R.T.E., the Irish television
network. Local theatre companies, large and small, get plenty of
funding, at least compared to American companies, and feature prominently
in city-sponsored festivities such as the St. Patrick’s Day parade, and
of course the Dublin Theatre Festival.
It seems there
is a support network to help the artist along each step of their creative
endeavor. More than that, one senses a validation of the artist’s
chosen path which is all but absent in the U.S. Artists in Ireland
feel entitled to practice their craft, and they know they are viewed as
being vital to quality of life. Perhaps this is the legacy of Joyce,
Beckett, et al, those great writers who brought respect and prominence
to Ireland when the country was deeply engaged in political and economic
struggle. For now this remains a culture in which the power to earn does
not mark one’s primary value to society. Above all else, this binds my
heart to Ireland. Now, I’m just waiting for them to change their
old-fashioned quarantine laws so I can be reunited with my cats.
