Jaywalking with the Irish

A quality of life survey, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, rated Ireland as the best country in the world in which to live. Maybe. I spent a few years in Dublin in the days before the Celtic Tiger started roaring and certainly found it a charming, witty, engaging place. But there was a dark side as well. (And there's the weather). David Monagan, an American of staunchly Irish ancestry, discovered both moods of the Emerald Isle when he took his wife and three children to live in the ancestral city of Cork. On the one hand they were overwhelmed with the warmth and hospitality, endlessly entertained by the wonderful stories and hilarious parties, and greatly impressed at the results-focused education system. But there was also a sadness at the damage wrought by the headlong economic development, frustration at the appalling bureacracy, and shock at the occasional manifestations of an underlying xeonophobia. Most of the book focuses on the joy and humour -- it's often laugh-out-loud funny --of life in Cork. But in many ways the strength of the book is that it represents the totality of Ireland, not just the charming image, the dark as well as the glorious light. Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, is quoted on the cover as describing it as 'a hard, beautiful book about Ireland, written with love byt facing head-on the darkness that rode in on the back of the Celtic Tiger... You won't find a better or truer depiction of Ireland than this one.' That's a big compliment but a deserved one.