Tough Times in the Irish Republic I keep hearing wrenching human stories about just how tough things have got in Ireland. The Republic is the one country hit even worse than Britain by the latest world crash, in part because it held the poisoned causes of the troubles closer to itself even than England did. I went frequently to Dublin in that time. One look at the landscape of euro-city, and you knew you were at the Dodge county line, or maybe Vegas. Unlike Vegas, however, it was obvious that what happened in Dublin wasn't staying there. For instance, one legacy of the Irish revolution all those years ago, aided in the west by the tendency of communities to cause real trouble to people who tried to interfere, was that when owned, land seemed yours . In England, all sorts of restrictions could be applied to it; in the booming Ireland to which the children of emigrants were returning ten years ago, one could build whatever one liked, paint it whatever colour, and sell it to just abou...
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