An Irishman’s Diary on upsides to downturns

Sometime in the summer of 2007 I remember a radio station cleverly filling some silly season airtime by asking listeners when they first realised that the recession had arrived. Soon people were ringing in with answers like, “I knew the game was up when I met ‘Breakfast Roll Man’ leaving a deli with a plain sandwich”. Another listener claimed the Celtic Tiger was clearly on its deathbed as she had observed her local estate agent lunching in a McDonald’s. Somebody else, with perhaps tongue in cheek, suggested a recent stock market fall could be traced to the moment when the champagne served in the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway Races stopped being Dom Pérignon.

All good clean fun, of course, and ideal for a laugh since we had been assured with certainty that the Irish economy would come to earth with a “soft landing”.

A year later, things were different. Instead of touching down softly, the economy crashed and burned. Unemployment rocketed, banks tottered perilously, capital fled and by then no radio station would dare treat the recession in anything but the most serious fashion.

Dark time

For many, what followed was indeed a dark time, characterised by bankrupted businesses, emigration and negative equity while new appellations such as “ ghost estate”, “bad bank”, “Nama hotel” and “vulture capitalist” entered popular discourse. Yet could it be that, for those lucky enough to remain in employment, the recession wasn’t really the worst of times since Ireland remained – as Vincent Browne is fond of pointing out – one of the wealthiest countries in the world?

Certainly, those of us lucky enough to continue working enjoyed the bonus of fewer traffic jams, lower prices and shorter queues, while for some, Michelin-star restaurants became delightfully uncomplicated to access. Our values also seemed to undergo a paradigm shift. A yearning for a simpler, less complicated life was exemplified by vegetable patches, flocks of poultry and even the occasional pig in an urban back garden. And then the rampant individualism of the Tiger years began losing out to social solidarity. I recall reading of unemployed workers making their skills available free of charge to charitable organisations and those in need. Dublin Greeters were unpaid individuals who guided tourists around our capital city, while in the harsh winter of 2010/11, farmers gritted roads on a voluntary basis and ferried supplies to those cut off by snow.

From my own point of view, I savoured the unaccustomed pleasure of good value breaks in hotels I could never previously have afforded.

On my walking expeditions I noticed far more people out exercising wholesomely among the hills. And there were also unforgettable moments when, as a nation, we totally forgot our woes. We cheered to the rafters when Ireland won a rugby Grand Slam in 2009 having symbolically defeated England in Croke Park on the way. We applauded loudly as Ireland’s freakishly talented golfers collected abundant major titles and were enraptured by a young Clare team’s breakthrough all-Ireland hurling victory.

Human spirit

So, could it now come to pass that we will retrospectively view the downturn, not as just another bleak period among Ireland’s depressing familiar list of economic meltdowns, but as a time when the human spirit triumphed over adversity? Do economic bubbles inevitably bring out the worst in us all while recessionary periods help to restore our sense of perspective?

Whatever the answer to this question, it now seems the harshest austerity is behind us. The suburban chickens have long flown the coop and the once trim vegetable allotments are now returning to nature.

So this summer I am expecting some radio station to question when we finally accepted the recession had ended. Listeners will then ring in and speak of fat-walleted, sharp-elbowed buyers gazumping each other to purchase homes in south Dublin, estate agents leaving car showrooms in flash new Porsches and shopping parties heading once again for Woodbury Common. And in a way, I will feel just a little wistful for, despite the austerity and the harshness, some great moments of unity and national solidarity during the downturn years.

Then, when the Celtic Phoenix has arisen sufficiently from the ashes to bestow a long-delayed pay increase on this humble servant, I will immediately forget all of the above and shout a loud hurrah.