Scars of Ideology

There are times when one feels a deep sense of despair—and perhaps it is the movement from rural to urban that awakens it within me. You see in the little place where I live the clocks stopped years ago in many ways. It stopped in people’s view of society and of themselves—these people hold conservative values and change of any sort makes them uncomfortable. From the outside it appears idyllic. When I moved to Courtmacsherry in 2006 I was knocked out by the physical beauty—and the mild mannered no hurry and sure how bad attitude of the locals.

Seven years later everything looks the same but when one scratches the surface one finds that the skin is raw underneath. Yes unlike on my last visit to Dublin people are not rushing around aimlessly to fast food joints. There are no loud beeping of horns and banging fists on car bonnets. We have no neoliberal altars such as occupy the once beautiful Carrickmines valley.

Yet we do have our sores. In 2006 these houses sprung up in a field beside the estate where I rented a cottage. I had come to Courtmacsherry to write my first novel Viareggio. You could say these houses were thrown up—I passed by each day on my walk and what was an empty field soon filled with ordinary houses selling at exorbitant prices.

The houses were of course snapped up. Young upwardly mobile couples—and single people investing bought them up at rapid rate. Of course today all of these houses save for a few that were designated for social housing are in negative equity. Talking to local business people they lament the whole sad process.

This was once a thriving little resort—trains full of day trippers came from Cork city every summer Sunday in the fifties. People have holiday homes and caravans here—children have fond memories of golden summers spent by the sea. Mothers would arrive with their kids whilst husbands worked and drove down for weekends.

The West Cork railway was shut down in 1961---afterwards the ships that used unload coal and cement stopped sailing up the estuary. The current winter population of Courtmacsherry is just over 200. The local business people had placed their hopes on the success of the aforementioned estate. With many of the residents unable to pay mortgages and with many out of work, there is no money left to be spent down the main street. One owner confided in me that local politicians said at the time the building of these houses would resurrect commerce in the village.

It is a sad sight indeed to walk into your local friendly bar for a quiet pint and chat—only to find that there is just the proprietor and oneself.
So the small village of Courtmacsherry is hurting too. Many will look at the property bubble and the greed values imposed by vested interests as the reason for the downturn. Yes it is true many people borrowed money that in hindsight they could never afford to repay. Others are victims of redundancy from failed businesses. Many are self employed trades’ people who no longer have a market as money drains from the system.

Recently whilst walking by our small harbour I noticed a couple of fishing boats alongside—one was in good repair but I would be fearful of going to sea in the other one. It struck me the madness that has gripped our society. This is the natural industry for a small seaside village—with access to the Atlantic Ocean. Yet we as a citizenry have not instructed our representatives to create a proper indigenous fishing industry. Just think of the amount of jobs proper investment would create—jobs created by the state for the good of its citizens. The spin offs into food processing, and marketing would provide more jobs. Money would come back into the economy and the local businesses would thrive on the backs of secure employment.

Let us remember our government only create the conditions to enable job creation—they don’t actually create jobs. Why is this? Don’t they want to create Irish industry for our citizens or is that too socialist or leftist for them? They prefer the over reliance on American multinationals who come and go on a whim –and have no intrinsic loyalty to the state. They don’t even pay the correct low rate of corporation tax—bullies as they might leave [fright.]
I would like to dedicate this piece to all of those who swallowed the neoliberal line back in 2006, about property and using houses as investments—and I plead with them to examine this ideology that has doomed them and this nation.