Monday, September 03, 2007

One kind of Irish

Seen around Washington DC: anti Jurys hotel bumper stickers. There's a Jurys in Dupont Circle. The bumper sticker includes a link to this website. The specific complaints seem to have more to do with industrial relations than the nationality or the authenticity of the owners. If anything, the problem with the ownership structure as outlined by the website is that it's all too Irish.

You could tell a very concise story of Irish politics going from Sean Lemass and Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH) to the row between the Roches and CRH, Charlie Haughey (the son-in-law of Lemass) and Fianna Fail's continued ties to CRH (not least their accountant), and the very sweet deal that the Roche company (National Toll Roads) got on the west link bridge (which is referred to on the website). And the obsession of the current government with tolled motorways. That's a real Ireland, just not the one that people expect.

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