The Brendan Voyage

Brendan Cardiff is proud to be a Northside Dubliner. Unlike that other "northsider", Bono, Brendan has not ensconced himself in a southside mansion. In fact he hasn't ensconced himself on the southside at all. He has, however, had an exciting and distinguished career on both the Irish and international stages.

His childhood stories resonated with me. We are, after all, both Dubliners and from the same generation.

Before I mention a few of them, and in order not to detract from the more weighty considerations of Irish economic development in the latter half of the twentieth century and from our tunnel visioned relationship with Europe, I should say that I have commented on these in my review of Roots on Amazon.

In the 1950s British sweets were a luxury, probably as much due to their scarcity value as anything else. A visit to the UK always ended with a ritual purchase of the unavailable at home, such as Spangles. Brendan mentions a visit to Northern Ireland in the 1950s when he couldn't buy the sweets because post-war rationing was still in force there and he didn't have a ration book. Well, maybe nobody told him where to get one. My family visited the North in the 1950s and we were directed to the coupon distribution centre to pick up our ration entitlement. Having used this up during the first week of a fortnight's stay, we went back for the second week's coupons only to find that we had already consumed our two week allocation. An early onset of Lent followed.

Brendan very wisely defines the difference between clothes and presents. As a child I sold raffle tickets for the Franciscans in Cork and, as was usual in these matters, there was always a draw for the promoters. I won six dozen of stout. However, as there was a rail strike on at the time and the stout could not be got to Dublin the Franciscans sent a cheque. That was fine by me. I know where the stout would have gone. I had the cheque spent in my head long before it arrived only to find, when it did, that my mother requisitioned it to buy me clothes. Much needed I'm sure they were. Presents they were not.

He reminds us of the time milk was delivered via the tilley out of the churn, only to be replaced by the new fangled bottled milk. He mentions the extra drop out of the tilley to make sure you weren't being short changed. This was the first time I heard tell of a baker's dozen of milk. I wonder does he remember the cutting-edge-of-technology foil-milk-bottle-top opener distributed for free by Hughes Bros. Round piece of plastic with a bump in the middle. Worked a dream.

While we're still on the milk, he mentions the transition from horse drawn to motorised delivery. He doesn't, however, mention one of the downsides to this bit of technological progress. No more manure. I remember well following the horse drawn carts down our road with a bucket and spade gathering manure for the back garden. Maybe they didn't do that on the Northside!

Joshing aside, this is a fascinating book. Apart from the purely personal stuff, Brendan has recorded his experiences in the early days of Irish economic development through his work in the private and public sectors, both in Ireland and abroad. He was in Uganda, representing the EU Commission during Idi Amin's reign, and this, among other things, has given him a deep and no-nonsense approach to development.

He is an inveterate traveler and the book contains wonderful cameos of his favourite places along with some beautiful, and very professional, photos from his own camera.

Significantly, the book is published by Liffey Press, a Northside publishing house, headquartered in Raheny, Dublin 5.

A backseat on the Brendan voyage is yours for the asking. Try it. It's a worthwhile trip. Available at good booksellers or, in extremis, from Amazon.

27 - 1 = 0

It's just as well an upside down tricolour (the normal distress mode) is not noticeable. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the EU flag!

What was the Lisbon Treaty?
It was essentially housekeeping to allow the Union to function effectively with 27 Member States. However, it also involved some changes which were significant enough for the Government to opt for a constitutional amendment in Ireland.

     Significant changes

• rotation of Commissioners
  
• voting base/shares in Council
  
• move to QMV (integration of 2nd & 3rd pillars)
  
• new procedure for amending the Treaty
  
• incorporation of Human Rights Charter
  
• strengthening of EU's legal personality
  

    Not in Treaty

• abortion
  
• direct tax harmonisation
  
• mutual defence pact overriding "neutrality"
  
• conscription
  
• undermining of minimum wage
  

Who is to blame for Ireland's NO

Successive governments since 1972 who presented the EU as essentially a cash cow - from Paddy Hillery's "de CAP and de LONG RUNS" to de Nortside Teeshocks "LOONEYS 'N' LOO LAHS". It was too much of an effort (intellectually and otherwise) to communicate the broader motivation behind the project: prevention of war; more rational use of resources at a European level; counterweight to the USA; spread of democracy and rule of law within and without the Union (eg by promise of membership to the east), etc.

No surprise then that when a new Treaty doesn't bring more cash, and when we are turning into a net contributor rather than a net beneficiary, the people have no further use for the project.

The EU is frequently blamed for unpopular government decisions, instead of the rationale for the decision and its place in the overall project being put forward. We have, explicitly or implicitly, had a hand in every decision taken since we joined and it is irresponsible, and counterproductive in the longer term, to "blame" others. This contributes to the "them foreigners and us Irish" attitude which led to such posters as "No to Foreign Control" during the campaign being taken seriously. Divil the bit of "pooled sovereignty" in evidence when we're giving out about EU decisions!

There has surely been a serious "democratic deficit" in Ireland's involvement with the Union but most of this has been within the country and under our own control. In Council negotiations, for example, the Danes have for years been entering "scrutiny reserves" - these effectively meant that they were witholding consent to whatever proposal was on the table until they (government and parliament) had a chance to digest it and come to a considered view on it.

The Treaty was actually tackling what remained of a "democratic deficit" at the European level.

The YES campaign started too late. Instead of presenting a negotiating triumph to the public and forcing the opposition to challenge it, they let the opposition sow the seeds, largely unhindered, and were then on the backfoot defending the invisible.

The YES parties did not get the vote out. Much of the NO vote was, no doubt, an informed NO, but there were a lot of people who voted NO on the basis that they did not understand what was involved and were not prepared to commit to the unknown. The lackluster and defensive campaign of the YES side, combined with the usual complacency, meant that many of the potential YES voters stayed at home. Some voters stayed at home on the basis that the issues had not been sufficiently explained to enable an informed decision to be made. One of my intelligent relations fell into this category.

Other leaders across the EU who showed, or were reported without challenge as showing, their utter contempt for the democratic process, boasting of the obscurity of what was being put to the people, and, in some cases implicitly criticising the Irish decision to put the matter to a referendum.

All the elites for their complacency about Europe and their craven obeisance to an increasingly paranoid and immoral USA. The EU was supposed to be a counterweight to the USA in more than just economic terms but it seems to be knuckling under to the wilder demands of the current neo-con régime.

The actual loonies and loo lahs who blatantly lied their way through the campaign in a way reminiscent of the red scare tactics of the establishment in my youth.

At the beginning of the campaign I had more or less made up my mind to vote NO based on a sense of outrage at the sometimes dismissive and sometimes threatening attitude of those who would be leading us under this project if passed. On reflection, having read up on the Treaty (to a certain point), and given my broader empathy with the European project, I decided that voting NO would be cutting off my nose to spite my face so I voted YES.

There is an arrogance at the heart of the project which needs to be fought from within. It should not, however, put us off a project which is worthy in itself.

What are the consequences of the NO vote?

    for Europe

If matters remain as they are now, the project, in the longer term, stands a good chance of paralysis and increasing acrimony and even disintegration. It is worth remembering here that the gap between the elites and those they represent is widespread throughout the community. The French and the Dutch rejected the constitution. Other countries are not having referendums on the Treaty but the opinion polls do indicate a significant gap.

Alternatively, and most likely, some form of enhanced cooperation between the willing will emerge and the project will inch forward with Ireland on the sideline.

    for Ireland

However much we may try to console ourselves that we took a stand against the behemoth in the interest of the small folk, any political capital we had accumulated in Brussels, and further eastwards, and there was a lot, is now gone and we are likely to be increasingly effectively marginalised.

The rules as written will be observed, but as we often point out ourselves when boasting about how we punch above our weight, the real world also works on influence and alliances. We may now see that more clearly in operation from the outside. We have effectively deprived our oft lauded diplomats of that edge which they have used so well up to now on our behalf.

One of the first causes to suffer will be the ridiculous Irish language project which I have commented on earlier. This depended on goodwill, not only from the Commission, but from all the Member States. Stádas will now simply become Stad, cut off in its primeval prime.

This will likely be the least of our worries, however. The Government are now being sent back by the people to Brussels to "renegotiate a more favourable Treaty". It is hard to see how this can be done when all our concerns were actually covered in the one we have just rejected.

This is more than the rejection of a single treaty. It is a flock of political chickens coming home to roost.

I am reminded of an ancient German proverb which I was introduced to in the 1960s when we were still knocking at the door of the Common Market trying to get in. My failing recollection and ungrammatical German renders it thus:

Das Leben ist wie eine Hühnerleiter, kurz und beschissen.

Time to fly the coop!