Donegal

Brief visit to Donegal to see the sea and check that the house is all right.  We’ve got the hot water working again but the lawn-mowing arrangements seem to be under strain.  Poppy is enjoying being able to run about but there are no sheep around for her to worry.  Met Colm the local painter [and decorator] in the supermarket.  He complains the new houses are being built so close together that you could shake hands with your neighbours.  He used to complain, in his capacity as Chair of the Dunfanaghy Development Committee, that the sewage arrangements for all these new houses were inadequate and that if everybody answered the call of nature at the same time we would be in trouble.  The pace of development is quite amazing.  Some of the planning decisions look at little surprising – but then we are marking the passing of Charlie Haughey today.  Would that the great Irish tradition of inadequate planning would die with him.  As always there is a tension.  I saw a report recently that tourists were going home dissatisfied – that Ireland is no longer particularly Irish in the tourist sense.  On the other hand, we are looking at the first generation of young people for whom there have been jobs and homes here without the need to emigrate.  And there are jobs for others as well – 10% of the population is now non-Irish.