How many of you have been reading about the sorry state of affairs in Northern Ireland?
I wasn't aware of the awful state of relationships between Protestant and Catholic politicians until I read the article in the New York Times about the infidelity of Prime Minister Robinson's wife, and it's potential link to a financial scandal involving her husband.
Some of the trouble is personal -- apparently the Catholic Prime Minister and Martin McGuiness, the Protestant who leads with government along with Robinson, don't like each other.
And, as the Times comments, news of the sex scandal comes at roughly the same time as Gerry Adams, the former republican leader, revealed a history of sex abuse in his own family? Not to mention that the awful history of sexual abuse by nuns and clergy in Ireland is still having an effect on former victims and generations of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.
Sex and politics and religion -- it's that old, flammable mixture so present in Irish poetry and drama.
Really, Eugene O'Neill could not have made this stuff up.
Isn't it interesting that these troubles come as Ireland is so close to liberating itself from British rule?
How amazing it seemed several years ago, when it seemed like peace had finally come --or maybe that the people who had invested so much in terror had finally tired of bloodshed.
But it seems that they aren't yet weary of hating one another.
A pessimist would see the cold war continuation of the fued of a hot-blooded nation.
And an optimist? Well, he or she might see the death throes of the old order as Irish leaders falter towards peace.
Frankly, at the moment I wouldn't put money on either.
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