Food for Thought

I read recently a suggestion that countries that experience severe drops in population levels due to traumatic events might never recover psychologically. Today Ireland's population remains 25% lower than what it was before the famine (from 8 to 6 million in the whole island). Ireland is a country that re-lives its history everyday. The almost genetically ingrained memories of pain from the great famine and the long process of securing independence are obvious on a daily basis. Much progress and healing has occurred in recent years, but it doesn't take much to raise the old resentment. Even apparently innocuous mistakes by UK press such as naming a famous Irish person as British (They actually tend to claim Irish actors and athletes as theirs in the good days, but remember correctly the person's origin when they are associated with any bad news) can trigger highly protective feelings. Northern Ireland has one of the most fractured societies in the world, and intoler