Mistah Tiger, he dead.
It’s all over folks. The BBC calls time on the boom years, ‘Irish economy goes into recession’. It’s been a grand ten years or so, more or less. We’ve had some good times, ate some flat sambos*, enjoyed many a pot of the green sauce. Bought a shit load of stuff, ran up some eye watering credit card debt and brought the tenements back to Dublin. But now we are fecked. Time to don the sackcloth and ashes of our forefathers and get back to the begrudgery.
Perhaps even emigrate to Wales. According to the BBC again (so you know it’s true),
The Irish began arriving in Wales in the 1840s. They were the largest single group of immigrants to play a part in the story of Wales.
This prompted comment in Parliament, and the Monmouthshire Merlin newspaper commented on “the alarming and lamentable appearance of the streets of Newport, crowded with many hundreds of famishing Irish”.
Prior to this, in some quarters there’d long been a suspicion about the Irish – in earlier times there were rumours that the immigrant Irish sucked the blood of sheep, murdered children and ran “faster than any dog”.
It’s all true you know, we do suck off the occasional sheep and run faster than any dog. If greyhound racing was an Olympic sport, that also allowed human vs canine speed trials we’d be bringing home a kennel load of medals and all the pedigree chum a man could ever need in these straightened times.
But we cannot let the passing of the great green beast that’s haunted us these past ten years go unmarked. An epitaph or two should be be scratched upon the tomb of the Celtic Tiger, for now we live in the swirling detritus of it’s passing and the approaching shitstorm of our own hubris.
September 2008
Was it for this the Fianna Failers spread
Their greasy palms open wide;
For this that all our good times went,
For this Liam Lawlor died,
And Charlie Haughey and Des Traynor,
All that delirium of the knaves;
The Celtic Tiger’s dead and gone,
It’s with auld Bertie in the grave.
(with apologies to W.B.)
*Note to my American friends, ‘a sambo’ is Hiberno English slang for a sandwich. A contraction of the mangled pronunciation of sandwich as ’sambidge’ or ’sangwedge’. Got to love a bit of slang that inadvertently crosses cultural and linguistic boundaries. I imagine many Americans are surprised to see the signage on local delivery vans over here advertising ‘Sean’s Sambos’.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:19 am
In my family we occasionally call them “Sandriches.” And I’m from a town called Sandwich, which occasionally gets referred to as “Sammich.” So I’m a big fan of mangled pronunciations of the word.
Alas, Celtic Tiger. Down the same drain as the ‘Merican economy. I wouldn’t recommend emigrating here this time ’round, though. We’re just as fucked.
I’m sure travel expenses will be real cheap, though, so see you soon!
September 26th, 2008 at 7:24 am
So what’s the difference between a sandwich and a bap? I’ve never understood. Either way, I’ve rounded up six Irishmen and turned them in for enough cash to buy both. Well, that’s assuming the inflation doesn’t go all crazy Zimbabwe on us. In which case I’ve now got enough cash for a stick of gum.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Mourning the Celtic Tiger right along with you … seeing as the US is the anchor about his neck. Sad times.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:11 am
Shite, I left before it started and now its over before I can get back. And I don’t mean Wexford’s hurling success either, that is buried too somewhere secret where nobody is likely to find it in a hurry.
Breakfast time here, perfect for a hang sanger!!