FIND a safe house, stay away from the market place and above all, don’t get kidnapped by Hezbollah.
The advice from my noble peers and family couldn’t have come at a more ardent time. A trainee journalist leaving Laois for the streets of Lebanon, a ludicrous move in their eyes.
The death of a Japanese journalist caught up in a riot did little to disperse their argument. Six months work experience with SABIS, a leading educational publishing company based in Beirut awaits me. An act of escapism, opportunism and down right cheek will, I hope, sort me out.
The Middle Eastern stereotype of the suicide bomber sends alarm bells ringing in my family’s ears. I’m trading a toothless tyrant for a vibrant city and culture I know nothing about. But that’s the only way to approach the unknown, learn all you can when you can.
After all, there are terrorists and suicide bombers on my very doorstep. They have dropped bombshell after bombshell on any chances and ideals of prosperity I had. My family has been hit by every possible blast.
The shrapnel has pierced every bone in my body. My father, a garda in Rathdowney, County Laois, has seen his pension reduced by the levy of 7.5%, yet he admirably says we must put our shoulder to the wheel and build a better future for our children.
A rise in interest rates means a double whammy, never mind the fact that he raises my four siblings, one of which is in WIT. Coupled with being injured on the job and a looming hip replacement, things have gone from bad to worse.
The next generation will be paying for the mistakes of others for their lifetime. While the working classes slaved away to build this republic, our politicians, bankers and statesmen dazzled away on yachts, golden handshakes and multi-million euro pensions. The family provision in the constitution should be scrapped. Protecting us, protecting our children-are you having a laugh?
Not everyone was part of the Celtic Tiger era. Moyross, the regeneration areas, addressing child poverty and education all missed out. Hospital areas lay in ruin, primary school classes were the largest in the EU. Forget knowledge economy, Bord Failte should replace it with blah, blah, boom. The government didn’t create the boom, sheer luck and good fortune combined to perch them on the highest pedestal they could find.
Come 2012 I have to envisage myself working. I will be footing the bill for my siblings. My father has done everything to get me this far, I owe it to him and my brothers and sisters to pay off our mortgage, loans, and pay for their third level education.
If there is any justice in this country then the likes of Michael Fingleton and Sean Fitzpatrick will literally have got their comeuppance while I’m away.
Bertie Ahern once remarked: “I don’t know how people who engage in that don’t commit suicide”, in response to UCD Professor Morgan Kelly’s economic prediction of the looming bust.
Just don’t hit my family on the way out. I’m indebted to hard labour in the gulags of urban Ireland. I’ll enjoy my time in Lebanon at your expense.
D.K.
Hezbollah will have no interest in you, the market place is the only place to be - apart from Gemayzeh on a Saturday night of course, and there is no such thing as a safe house in Beirut. Still what a great city. Enjoy it!
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