Re: Re: A Nation at War with its Capital City?

Mickey, you are correct about the litter in Dublin and the behaviour of some of it’s citizens. I hate Skangers too. But a part of me feels that much of this stems from decades of the city being unoffically unloved, respected or even wanted by the State. When was the last time you saw any kind of movement to make Irish (let alone Dubliners) people proud of their capital, it’s culture, it’s economic sucess and it’s heritage?

Yet by the same token Galway city is held up as this model Irish city, and the cold reality is that Galway city apart from the small Temple-Bar like area central area is a spead out, badly-planned souless kip. Yet it is only Dublin which has spead out too far and must be dismantled by the Government “before it falls into the Irish Sea”. Why can these West of Ireland TDs who prevented a Greater Dublin Authority and at least 2 Dublin Transport Authorities from forming because such implementations would allow Dublin to really take off as a city and region, take a look at what happened to Galway and Limerick before hey start pointing fingers at Dublin and screaming “guilty” and poor and corrupt planning?

Also many Irish provincial towns are filthy with litter and have anti-social behaviour problems as well. This is not just a Dublin issue, unless of course you want to blame the shocking litter problems in Sligo town and Cork city on Dubliners.

Also I don’t see Dublin politicans reserving planning permission for locals only to keep the Culchies out inthe same way several West of Ireland councils have implemented such propsals with pride. Could you imagine if Dubliners declared that Poolbeg was “Dublin’s Electricity” in the same way that Corrib is “Mayo’s gas”. How come it is only Dubliners who have no problem sharing their wealth and city with the rest of the country and it’s all GAA county colours and “feck off this is all ours” everywhere else?

You talk about Dubliners messing up their city, but the same can be said of the rest of the country as well. But the difference is that Dublin and it’s politicans do not go out and destroy the growth and potential of the rest of the country the way rural TDs feel they have an obligation to do with so Dublin. In many parts of this country TDs run for office on little more than anti-Dublin platforms. Many Dubliners would be shocked if they knew the level of hatred expressed towards them and their city by most of the people in “the Dublin Goverment”.

I don’t blame the ordinary people outside Dublin for this, more their poltical representatives and the organisations from the regions. Most ordinary people outside Dubln are not anti-Dublin, this is more a mentality among the rural elite, who have no more respect or interest in their own people than they do Jackeens. They just use Dublin as an excuse for all their own shortcomings and to hide their own incompetence. Take this recent article in the Tuam Herald recently were the local po;iticians were complaing about how it is everyones fault but their own that the Tuam by-pass is delayed.

Tuam Town Council on Monday night described the delays in starting the Tuam by-pass as an insult, adding that the oral hearings for the project were the shortest in the history of the State due to the co-operation of the landowners along the Tuam route.

However one public representative who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue told The Herald “If we had not had so much time wasted over nonsense about saving swans and the like and people trying to cash in on a planning bonanza the work would have been well underway or completed by now. The blame for this set-back is closer to home than some public figures care to admit.”

http://unison.ie/tuam_herald/stories.php3?ca=34&si=1712329&issue_id=14806

But the fault always lies to the East with the “Dublin Government” doesn’t it… This need to point the finger of blame away from themselves is what drives much of this anti-Dublin psychosis among Irish politicians and the rural elite.

Ironically this sustained 70 year attack on Dublin and Irish urban life has perhaps damaged the potential of regions outside Dublin and in particular other cities like Cork and Limerick as much as it has Dublin. Like I said, the “Fair Madiens dancing at the Crossroads” was and always will be a recipe for national destruction.