Merry Christmas!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Go raibh gach sonas ort an Nollaig seo.

Drinking Tea in Ireland - Harmful for your Health?

Any time we visited my grandmother in Limerick, we would be greeted with a cup of tea, a familiar experience for anyone living or traveling in Ireland. Like bread and salt in olden days, the cup of tea is part of making someone feel welcome and safe. It is difficult to imagine Ireland without tea. And yet there was a time when drinking tea was considered harmful for your health and detrimental to society. Researcher Helen O'Connell of Durham University studied pamphlets from the early 1800s and found writers chastising Irish women for sipping tea instead of working in the home and preparing supper for their husbands. Apparently, these reformers felt concerned about alleged addictive qualities of tea and compared it to the Chinese using opium. Authors warned that Ireland would never be able to emerge from poverty if women continued to drink two cups of tea a day. Just as many Chinese had become addicted and subsequently lethargic, the Irish were in danger of remaining backward and a liability to the British Empire.

Remember, the British Empire forced China to allow the import of opium from plantations in India. London did not want to spend precious silver to buy luxury items in high demand at home, such as silk from China. As a consequence Britain became the largest drug-dealing state the world had known. At the same time, middle-class reformers worried about the Irish drinking too much tea.

Pamphlets from the early 1800s describe the dangers of tea-drinking similar to drug abuse: addiction, passivity, moral decline. Impoverished people would ruin their entire life by pursuing their desire for tea. One pamphlet in 1811 by reformer and writer, Mary Leadbeater, tells the story of two female friends. Rose warns her friend Nancy that 'must not every poor man's wife work in and out of doors, and do all she can to help her husband? And do you think you can afford tea, on thirteen pence a day? Put that out of your head entirely, Nancy; give up the tea for good and all.'

Christmas Cheer for the Irish Economy

After several years in decline, the Irish GDP is expected to grow again next year. After a massive banking and housing bubble, with taxpayers bailing out failing businesses, the Celtic Tiger is slowly getting back on his feet. Experts also predict the unemployment rate falling - but the rate will still be over 14 per cent.

The good news is particularly welcome across Europe, as the Irish government has complied with all the regulations attached to the EU bailout - government spending has been cut, the VAT has been increased to 23 percent, and the pension age moved up to 68 years - a record in Europe. The big financial governing bodies like to compare the quiet Irish resolve to shoulder the hardship with the volatile protests in Greece. In the last four years, Irish citizens have seen seven austerity packages passed by their Parliament, and cuts amounting up to a fifth of the GDP have especially hit pensioners, struggling families and the unemployed.

Like elsewhere, failing banks were nationalized, following the general tendency to nationalize losses and privatize profit. Hard-working people have to pick up the pieces and tighten their belts, yet again.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, and maybe, just maybe, the people who have left Ireland for brighter shores may find opportunities at home again.

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