As we discussed privately only yesterday, a lot of the whining about inward immigration and the large numbers of 'foreigners' in Ireland is down to the fact that, from the period from the late 1990's through to 2010, you were actively seeking to import anyone you could convince that it was a good idea to move to Ireland for work. Work like all those shitty jobs you were too proud to do yourselves, like scrubbing toilets, like proffering aftershave in said toilets while dressed in a rented tuxedo, surrounded by the smell of piss, shit, bleach, and cheap aftershave. The same immigrant lads who scrubbed your streets and lived a frugal life and who later married and had kids and now those kids have come of age and are disgruntled at the shitty deal they got as you are looking at them react to their shitty quality of life.
Unfortunately, it's not legal to boot them all out now that you've no use for them. They're in town to stay, so you'd better find a way to accommodate that simple reality lest you spend the rest of your days angry and ready to burn the fuckers out if you thought you could get away with it. You actively sought them out to come over and start a new life on the blighted little rock you call home. They now run the same businesses they started out as lackeys for when they arrived. They now employ Irish people and tell Irish people what to do, when to do it, and how to do it properly. I know that sticks in the craw of many of your (supposed) nationalist types, but facts are facts - you dug your own hole, you stupid fucking cunts. Now you better learn how to get comfortable in them.
It was all so easy back then, eh. The banks sending out credit cards with €10,000 overdrafts and limits to totally unemployable mongs and other chancers who grabbed it and started partying like there was no tomorrow. Well, they were right - because this is your tomorrow and you're still €235Bn in the hole, lads. That's your debt, not mine. I got smart real fast:
First, get out of Ireland set up base elsewhere, but keep an active company going and on the Irish books. Collect/build up a network/grid of clients dependable enough to warrant booking a return flight so you can hit, do the work, get paid, then leave when the season's done. Run the business as though you're actually there on the ground rather than on the other side of Europe. Keep your mouth shut about where you're actually domiciled, and trust no-one outside of family with the actual hard facts. Try to keep the payments in cash and if not, thenuse a fake company name you can dispose of at any time. Never try to take over €10,000 in a single hit and run seasonal work period, keep an account in Ireland too (I used Permanent TSB) to stash the excess cash until next trip home. If you are paid by cheque, run it through the building society and launder it. Save what you make and take it with you so you have a nice quality of life with the security of knowing you have a fail-safe back home already set up. Remember that any emotional or patriotic feelings you have about Ireland are illusions: Ireland's a fucking dump, a rotten little shithole country. Never allow yourself to get too attached to anything Irish bar making money, you should be prepared to leave at a moment's notice should you feel you need or have to.
I hired lots of people over the years: I paid them in cash, didn't ask for any details other than that they were reliable, up to my standards, didn't interfere with the running of things, and didn't ask me too many questions either. Few of my clients knew I lived abroad. I had no need to tell them either, so they felt good about hiring me thinking they were contributing to Ireland's arts and culture - which is what I told them they were doing when they paid me. Be prepared for some clients to try to stiff you. This is Ireland we're talking about.
If you really think things are bad now, then wait another ten years. By then your immigrants won't be immigrants any more, they'll be residents with the same rights and entitlements you have. You may not like them, they may like you either, but you're stuck with each and there's no changing that. Be prepared to see lots of aspects of your culture and lifestyle both change and disappear. Your language is dead. Your arts and musical cultures are also homogenizing. You'll never have another U2 or Thin Lizzy any more than you'll have another Joyce or Beckett: that aspect of Ireland and Irish culture is already diluted and fake.
Starvation makes true art, as does suffering, pennilessness, hopelessness, and even homelessness.
Your unwanted immigrants are now your neighbours, there's no changing that either.
They'll soon be running far bigger things than stolen phone and laptop outlets, cycling hot food deliveries to your door, and spitting on your pizzas.
You may even find that one day you'll have to shake one of their hands and agree to the terms they're offering you.
You can refuse it all you like, but there's another sucker right behind, so it makes fuck all difference to the reality of things.
You are where you are because you're Irish, because you swallowed the Kool Aid and took the bribes.
Those are your own problems, you made them for yourself and you have to solve them for far more people than just yourself.
Yapping about nationalism changes nothing, achieves nothing, and means nothing.
This is your life: get fucking used to it.
Me?
I'm having so much fun: and it's a Friday evening with blazing sunshine and blue skies over Helsinki, in the happiest little country in the world.
