Rural Ireland on its belly.

I came to live in Dunderry in 1986.It was thriving then.The two pubs were flying as was the local shop.
The local GAA Club was going well.There were myriad small businesses around the place giving reasonable employment.
Above in Robinstown there was a thriving pub ,a Post Office and a grocery shop.
Now ,in deference to the many businesses that ceased to exist since then,I  will not name them.
Any person who lived through those  times will be able to list the disappeared businesses.And the disappeared people.They are all over the globe.
There is no pub in Robinstown now.There is no Post Office in Robinstown now.There is no shop in Robinstown now.There is no shop in Kilbride now.
Those people who chose to stay and hold their ground have been and are being relentlessly pursued by Banks who destroyed the economy by loaning excessive amounts to people who couldn't afford the repayments,by State authorities who drive them to suicide and worse in pursuit of taxes they cannot pay and by an uncaring Social Welfare which places them on levels of subsistence that wouldn't sustain a mangy cat.
In 1986 the wisdom was that a yard of a publican's counter was worth a hundred acres of land.
The pubs of rural Ireland are fucked now and those trying to keep them going are modern day heroes.
Drink driving laws enacted by a self righteous elite who have at their fingertips severely subsidized transport options have pontificated from their perches on what the yokels in the country cannot  do.
In Dunderry there is not,nor has never been any form of public transport.
Gardai who used hide in the ditches to catch the guys brave enough to drive on unlit roads to get home with a few on board have now resumed their former activities,now that those of their members who forged  2 million non existent breathalyser tests have time on their hands..
The pubs are deserted most nights as people are terrified to go out.
Of course when you are robbed the culprits are never found.
I  used have a good regard for the medical profession .They stood way above us mere mortals in their unending self righteousness so you would have some regard when the vehemently deplored smoking.
Now some of their members  are murdering the living unborn.
Personally I  would rather take a chance on smoking than being killed before I  had chance to draw even one  breath
In the full knowledge that Hitlers Death Camps were manned and wommaned by doctors,who by a flick of their wrists decided on instant death by  gassing or more prolonged death by starvation,brutality or torture,the penny has eventually dropped about elements of this profession.
Even today Irish medics will not testify about negligence of their colleagues and claimants have to either go abroad for expert witnesses  ,the expense of which is prohibitive for ordinary litigants.
Now ,if you want to register with a new doctor there is a severe waiting list.People are dying and will die as a result.
If you want to build a house there are so many levies and rules to be surmounted that you would lose the will to live before permission came through.
Before the Famine of 1845 8 million people subsisted here Are there 6 million now.
How come with all these advances in technology and so forth that we cannot house all our people and that over 10,000 are homeless.In the countryside thousands are having their homes repossessed,but they are utterly helpless to help themselves.
The most prolific businesses in rural Ireland is farming.
Small beef farmers,and by this I  mean farmers with under 50 acres who either farm suckler cows or dry stock are losing money hand over fist for decades and have been subsidizing the losses by holding down off farm incomes.
They art regulated in their farming activities up to their oxters by both E.U.AND Irish regulations AND LAWS and live in a state of constant fear of the Dept.of Agriculture,who have the powers to put them under by cutting off their subsidies and bankrupting them in effect.
Banks are of no help whatsoever and the State bodies do all in their power to put them out of business.
Rural farmers are living hand to mouth.
Every employee in this State has the right to strike for an increase in their wages and the State imposes minimum wage limits on all employers
Farmers and other self employed  under competition law have no right to unite  to get a higher price.
This is a load of bollix and a reason why we ought take a leaf from the book of the Brits and tell the EU where to stuff it.
What are farmers supposed to do?
Leave the Thistles,Docks and Bonan Buis take over their fields,as they have the roadsides.
Our ancestors gave their lives for these fields and we are not going to let them slip from our hands in  order to provide  cheap food for Europe and destroy ourselves by working for slave returns.
An old guy I know said that if you had a son or daughter you hated you should give him a 40 acre farm on condition that he farmed it exclusively and rear a  family on it.
Guaranteed to drive him or her to suicide.
Goodman was saved by the then Government by the enactment into law of the Examinership legislation.
He was and is a financial heavyweight.
Farmers and their families are on their knees and at their wits ends.
They are expected to rollover and wither and die.
The Government,the Beef processors ,the Courts and the judges speak uno voce in humiliating and putting down those decent farmer protesters whose identity they can establish in every way their law allows.
This is no wonder as they are all loaded and share a commonality of origin,with a huge crossover between the political and judicial and legal systems.
The existing farmer organizations are so far up the holes of the Establishment that they have long ceased to represent the interest of the small guys.
This is why they have been cast aside and this is why the ordinary decent farmers will nor  back down .
Their backs are to the wall.This is their last stand and actually the last stand of all of rural Ireland.
Support them and yourselves O  ye of the land.