Free Republic

Another excellent paper by Simon Tilford from the Centre for European Reform. Eurozone policy-makers – from President Sarkozy and Wolfgang Schäuble to the former President of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet – advocate that Italy and Spain should emulate the Baltic states and Ireland. These four countries, they argue, demonstrate that fiscal austerity, structural reforms and wage cuts can restore economies to growth and debt sustainability.Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Ireland prove that so-called "expansionary fiscal consolidation" works and that economies can regain external trade competitiveness (and close their trade deficits) without the help of currency devaluation. Such claims are highly misleading....

HOLLYWOOD star Liam Neeson is considering giving up his Catholic belief and becoming a Muslim. The actor, 59, admitted Islamic prayer "got into his spirit" while filming in Turkish city Istanbul. He said: "The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it's the most beautiful, beautiful thing. "There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim." Liam was raised in Northern Ireland as a devout Catholic and altar boy...

There are plenty of drumlins in County Down - but have you heard of the Mound of Down? If not, that is probably because it has been hidden from public view by trees and gorse for decades. But work is now under way to expose this fortification which could be about 1,000 years old. Tim Campbell, director of the St Patrick Centre in Downpatrick, said it was one of the largest megalithic hill forts in western Europe. "We have forgotten about it as it been overgrown with trees," he said. "It was the seat of the high kings when they...

“Fiscal treaty designed to avoid Irish referendum,” headlines the Irish Times. According to Irish law, all new EU treaties must be put to a national plebiscite. However, an anonymous EU official has told the Dublin daily that the fiscal treaty agreed on Monday January 30 “was specifically crafted” to avoid the scenario of the Lisbon treaty referendum of 2008, which was rejected, thus delaying its coming into force. Conceding that the decision to hold a vote could well go to the Irish Supreme Court, the official argued that a referendum has “nothing to do with democracy.” The Irish Times notes...

SNIPPET: "But the solicitor helped to nab a major international dealer to the Iranian missile programme since he came to the job two years ago. He said: "One of our first cases started with a suspected heroin trafficker, so the National Drugs Enforcement Agency got this information that this guy Dugash was heading out to Kenya to buy heroin and they met him at the airport and seized his cash, which was something in the order of $10,000 which was a huge sum for this jurisdiction. "As part of the explanation he said it was cash belonging to himself and...

'The young airman was desperate to be back with his family and friends at the end of the war. He had done his bit to see off Hitler and make the world a safer place. His one wish now was to be home with ‘my people’. But, instead of a hero’s welcome, what Irishman Martin Walsh feared was being arrested and locked up. ‘Sir,’ he wrote plaintively from England to the authorities in Dublin in 1946, ‘I wish to return as a free Irish citizen once more, without detention or punishment. I would like to have my freedom in Eire...

'Ireland has admitted for the first time that its 'morally bankrupt' regime of the 1930s denied visas to desperate Jews trying to escape from Nazi persecution. Justice Minister Alan Shatter said that, following Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Ireland's anti-semitic Berlin ambassador Charles Bewley ensured 'the doors to this state were kept firmly closed to German Jewish families trying to flee'. The admission came as he apologised for the way brave soldiers who 'deserted' the Irish Army to fight with the Allies during the Second World War were treated. He suggested the 4,983 servicemen, who were barred from jobs and...

FITCH GOES ON RAMPAGE: CUTS SPAIN, ITALY, BELGIUM, CYPRUS, AND SLOVENIA Simone Foxman January 27,2012 Fitch just cut the long-term issuer ratings of 5 EU countries: Belgium: AA+ to AA Spain: AA- to A Italy: A+ to A- Cyprus: BBB to BBB- Slovenia: AA- to A It affirmed Ireland's BBB+ rating with a negative outlook. Borrowing costs have been sinking for these countries lately–particularly for Italy and Spain—after the European Central Bank announced liquidity support measures in early December that have lessened mounting worries about the health of the banking system. While Fitch says that it supports EU leaders actions...

Explanation: Begirt with many a blazing star, Orion, the Hunter, is one of the most easily recognizable constellations. In this night skyscape from January 15, the hunter's stars rise in the northern hemisphere's winter sky, framed by bare trees and bounded below by terrestrial lights around Lough Eske (Lake of Fish) in County Donegal, Ireland. Red giant star Betelgeuse is striking in yellowish hues at Orion's shoulder above and left of center. Rivaling the bright red giant, Rigel, a blue supergiant star holds the opposing position near Orion's foot. Of course, the sword of Orion hangs from the hunter's three...

Five thousand Irish soldiers who swapped uniforms to fight for the British against Hitler went on to suffer years of persecution. One of them, 92-year-old Phil Farrington, took part in the D-Day landings and helped liberate the German death camp at Bergen-Belsen - but he wears his medals in secret. Even to this day, he has nightmares that he will be arrested by the authorities and imprisoned for his wartime service. "They would come and get me, yes they would," he said in a frail voice at his home in the docks area of Dublin. And his 25-year-old grandson, Patrick,...

According to the Spanish daily ABC, a Libyan rebel commander who played a key role in overthrowing the rule of Muammar Qaddafi previously participated in the May 2010 attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza aboard the Turkish-owned vessel the Mavi Marmara. The operation famously culminated in a deadly clash between Israel Defense Force commandos and “activists” armed with iron rods and knives aboard the ship. The paper’s source for the story is the rebel leader himself: Mahdi al-Harati, the commander of the so-called Tripoli Brigades, which are widely credited with having played a decisive role in the rebel...

'Five thousand Irish soldiers who swapped uniforms to fight for the British against Hitler went on to suffer years of persecution. One of them, 92-year-old Phil Farrington, took part in the D-Day landings and helped liberate the German death camp at Bergen-Belsen - but he wears his medals in secret. Even to this day, he has nightmares that he will be arrested by the authorities and imprisoned for his wartime service. "They would come and get me, yes they would," he said in a frail voice at his home in the docks area of Dublin. And his 25-year-old grandson, Patrick,...

European Union (EU) bureaucrats received a tongue-lashing from Michael O'Leary, CEO of the Irish airline Ryanair, who criticized EU leadership for dishonesty, stifling innovation, and over-regulating and taxing successful industries and companies. "The reason [other airlines] fail to innovate, and the reason why the airline industry is in such a mess, is because its run by politicians and bureaucrats who like nothing more than to pass another regulation when something is working," O'Leary said at an EU conference on innovation. "I remember Ronald Reagan's quote in the U.S. that the economic policy of government and bureaucrats is always, 'if it...

Europe's Left has suffered a calamitous six months. Socialist governments have met historic defeats in Portugal and Spain. Greece’s Pasok party was toppled by an EU technocrat Putsch. Ireland’s soft-Left Fianna Foil lost every seat in Dublin. Almost 97pc of the European Union’s population is now governed by conservative or Right-leaning coalitions, or EU-imposed mandarins. All that is left to social democrats is Austria (8.4m), Denmark (5.5m), and Slovenia (2.1m). The whole machinery of the European Union (EU) system is under the control of the Right, with variants of Rhenish corporatism in the Council, and pre-modern Hayekians at the European...

AN emaciated dog was bound in chains and left to die in subzero temperatures. Dublin SPCA inspectors said they are constantly dumbfounded by the appalling acts of cruelty carried out on animals. Inspector Liam Kinsella was called to an area near the Bluebell flats off Davitt Road in Dublin where he found a terrified, shivering female dog. The Doberman is estimated to be aged between one and two years old. The dog was desperately malnourished and dehydrated and had severe pressure sores where the rope and chain were sawing through her skin. She had no body fat meaning her bones...

If the United States wants to help Europe find a way out of its current debt crisis, we must be a strong, world economic leader, not merely the lender of last resort. American taxpayers sent $40 billion to Greece last year, through the International Monetary Fund, to stave off an economic collapse. But the bailout did not prevent Greece's day of fiscal reckoning. It only delayed it. Austerity measures are still needed throughout Europe's socialized economy and the debt contagion has not been stopped. Financial chaos has spread from Greece to Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain, and it now threatens...

The eurozone banking system is on the edge of collapse as major lenders begin to run out of the assets they need to keep vital funding lines open. Senior analysts and traders warned of impending bank failures as a summit intended to solve the European crisis failed to deliver a solution that eased concerns over bank funding. The European Central Bank admitted it had held meetings about providing emergency funding to the region's struggling banks, however City figures said a "collateral crunch" was looming. "If anyone thinks things are getting better then they simply don't understand how severe the problems...

SURRENDER COMPLETELY AND RECEIVE MY LOVE FOR YOU ! My surrender to you is eternal , for as My Sacrifice was a promise and a statement of My Love coming down through the Father ! It is Now time for You to SURRENDER wholeheartedly to Me . I need to see a heart opened forth right and true ; to discern My Presence ! That you make " ALL " Known to Me ~ free for release and in this surrender as you raise your hands and lower your defenses and pride I WILL COME ! And My SPIRIT ,...

Vatican City, Nov 25, 2011 / 02:32 pm (CNA).- Monsignor Charles Brown, a 52 year-old New York priest who currently works in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is rumored to become the Pope’s next apostolic nuncio to Ireland.“If that rumor is true I’d say hallelujah,” Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York told CNA Nov. 24. “What a good guy he is,” the archbishop added. “He’s a young, vibrant, very theologically savvy but pastorally sensitive guy.”Archbishop Dolan added that Msgr. Brown has “loved in New York” and has “a wonderful pastoral side to him” due to...

THE MINISTER of State for Finance Brian Hayes has said the department had been involved in contingency plans in case there was a break-up of the euro or the establishment of a two-tier euro. Speaking at a business conference in Dublin, Mr Hayes said that “contingency planning is part and parcel of every government department, particularly the Department of Finance”. Asked what the plans involved, the Minister joked: “It is a bit like someone says in a middle of a war, ‘If I told you that, I’d have to shoot you’.” The October 26th plan to save the euro was...

Fr.Reynolds being welcomed back to his parish Last May, RTÉ, the national television network of Ireland, aired a high-profile, prime-time special entitled, "A Mission to Prey." It was a show designed to lambaste the Catholic Church for sex abuse scandals. The show made the startling claim that a previously unblemished Irish priest, Fr. Kevin Reynolds, had raped and impregnated a young girl years earlier in Kenya. It even claimed that the priest had secretly supported the mother and his child financially. Even before the program aired, Fr. Kevin vehemently denied the claims. Not only did he assert that he...

May Bunga Bunga boy go out with a smile on his face, for his reputation as the destroyer of the world's seventh largest economy is undeserved... Mr. Berlusconi's biggest sin was taking a bad situation -- the sclerotic Italian economy -- and not improving it, even though his 2008 election victory handed him a large majority, one that he could have exploited to make Italy competitive... But it's a stretch to say the aging Lothario wrecked the economy. That's the common view in "wealthy northern Europe (read: Germany), which is no doubt thrilled that Mr. Berlusconi will seek permanent refuge...

ROME, November 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a move that came as a shock to Vatican observers last week, the Irish government abruptly announced the closure of its embassy to the Holy See. While the official word from both the Vatican and the Irish coalition government is that the move was not meant as a diplomatic slight, there is wide agreement among pro-life leaders that the move is a deliberate diplomatic insult and an attempt to move Ireland away from its traditional Catholic roots, which undergird the country’s strong pro-life laws.The government claimed that the decision was made for financial...

A new survey shows 34 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population, say they have no religion. Even more significant is that one-third of those, about 11 million people, are Irish Americans. The survey by professors at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, does not explain why Irish Catholics are by far the highest number of people who are losing their religion every year in America. We can only surmise the reasons for this, but I have some definite ideas. Think church sex scandals. Let's look at the timeline first. The number of non-religious or "Nones" has nearly doubled between...

Although this is a report from the secular press, it highlights the very real costs to the people of Ireland, especially the priests who daily have to defend the what, at times, is almost impossible to defend. Having reported extensively on this over the past weeks, this will probably be the last time we shall post on this subject.The time now is for healing.From: The Irish Times Angry, isolated, paranoid and ageing, many of Ireland’s ‘ordinary’ Catholic priests feel failed and abandoned by the church hierarchy. But where were the ‘good priests’ when they were needed? THE VOICEMAIL was succinct....

Last week Enda Kenny spoke of his determination to ban the seal of confession,now a member of his Fine Gail party is calling for the cancellation of the International Eucharistic Congress due to be held in Dublin in 2012.  Even worse the proposal to cancel the Eucharistic Congress first came from a dissenting group of Catholic priests,the Association of Catholic Priests.The Guardian reports:Senator Cáit Keane said the Eucharistic Congress,which is scheduled to be held in the capital’s Phoenix Park in June,to be put off in the light of the row over the Vatican‘s attitude to clerical child sex abuse inquiries in the...

THE FIRST annual general meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests was told last night that if people had a vote on such matters church leaders would be swept out of office. If Irish Catholics had a democratic way of reflecting their feelings “church leaders would suffer a defeat as cataclysmic as that administered to Fianna Fáil in the recent general election”, Fr Kevin Hegarty said. What was needed was a church which would open its doors to “married priests and women priests”. It would benefit from secular insights like, for example, on human intimacy and democracy, he said. It...

Belfast, Northern Ireland (CNN) – A respected former Catholic bishop in Ireland is calling for an end to clerical celibacy in the wake of the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church worldwide, and says he finds it "heartbreaking" that some prospective priests turn away from the calling because of the celibacy rule. In his recently published book, "A Troubled See, Memoirs of a Derry Bishop," Dr. Edward Daly said that allowing clergymen to marry would ease many of the church's problems. There needs to be a place in the modern Catholic church for a married priesthood, said Daly,...

The Vatican refused to allow its officials to testify before an Irish commission investigating the clerical abuse of children and was angered when they were summoned from Rome, US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks reveal. Requests for information from the 2009 Murphy commission into sexual and physical abuse by clergy "offended many in the Vatican" who felt that the Irish government had "failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations", a cable says. Despite the lack of co-operation from the Vatican, the commission was able to substantiate many of the claims and concluded that some bishops had tried...

DUBLIN -- A 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police - a disclosure that victims' groups described as "the smoking gun" needed to show that the church enforced a worldwide culture of covering up crimes by pedophile priests. The newly revealed letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican's rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify pedophile priests following Ireland's first wave of publicly disclosed lawsuits...

DUBLIN -- The Vatican encouraged Catholic bishops not to tell police about suspected pedophile priests and flouted Irish law, Ireland's lawmakers declared Wednesday in an unprecedented denunciation of the Holy See's influence in this predominantly Catholic country. The government and all opposition parties unanimously backed a motion accusing the Vatican of sabotaging the Irish bishops' 1996 decision to begin reporting suspected cases of child abuse to police. "This is not Rome. This is the Republic of Ireland 2011, a republic of laws," Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers. In a direct challenge to the Vatican, Kenny denounced what he called...

DUBLIN -- The Vatican encouraged Catholic bishops not to tell police about suspected pedophile priests and flouted Irish law, Ireland's lawmakers declared Wednesday in an unprecedented denunciation of the Holy See's influence in this predominantly Catholic country. The government and all opposition parties unanimously backed a motion accusing the Vatican of sabotaging the Irish bishops' 1996 decision to begin reporting suspected cases of child abuse to police. "This is not Rome. This is the Republic of Ireland 2011, a republic of laws," Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers. In a direct challenge to the Vatican, Kenny denounced what he called...

The Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland in July after Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Holy See of obstructing investigations into sexual abuse by priests. Gilmore said he did not expect the Vatican now to close its mission in Dublin. "The fact that we have chosen to close our mission in the Vatican and to have it serviced from Dublin doesn't necessarily mean that we won't have a Papal Nuncio here," he said.

The chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management has said that the need for a German-led fiscal integration in the eurozone would make it increasingly unattractive for all the countries who joined to stay in the single currency. Jim O’Neill, whose division manages more than $800bn (£500bn) of assets, said that countries as diverse as Portugal, Ireland, Finland and Greece could pull out of the single currency rather than have to operate under a single eurozone treasury. Yesterday, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the market turmoil could last for a decade and there was still “a chunk of work” to...

Dozens of anti-Israel activists attempted to barge into the Israeli consulate in Boston over the weekend in protest over Israel's seizure of the Canadian-Irish flotilla ships that attempted to sail to Gaza. Bearing PA flags, the activists attempted to storm the building but were turned back. They swore to return, shouting slogans about how the “apartheid regime in Israel must fall.” The activists were “spillovers” from the Occupy Boston protests, one of many being held in the U.S. demanding social justice. At least three people have been arrested on drug charges in the protests over the past several days, and...

Catholic Ireland's stunning decision to close its embassy to the Vatican is a huge blow to the Holy See's prestige and may be followed by other countries which feel the missions are too expensive, diplomatic sources said on Friday. The closure brought relations between Ireland and the Vatican, once ironclad allies, to an all-time low following the row earlier this year over the Irish Church's handling of sex abuse cases and accusations that the Vatican had encouraged secrecy. Ireland will now be the only major country of ancient Catholic tradition without an embassy in the Vatican. "This is really bad...

WASHINGTON — Our head of state is now in Cannes, France, at the G-20 summit, gallivanting with elites from the planet's most powerful economies. For the first time since his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama isn't the center of attention. The stars of this week's party on the French Riviera are German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy — architects of a "bailout plan" to save the European Union's artificial euro currency and keep the PIIGs (Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece) from going bankrupt. It's all a sideshow, designed to convince us that governments can continue to...

One by one, the democracies of Southern Europe are being broken on the wheel of monetary union. Greek ministers are now cruelly depicted in cartoons knuckling to German orders or delivering the Nazi salute. The yearly march commemorating the struggle against the Axis was blocked in Thessaloniki by protesters shouting "traitor" at Greece's aging president, himself a teenage resister. I do not wish to be anti-German, since Germany itself is the chief diplomatic victim of EMU's unfolding tragedy. But this is what happens when you insert words such as "monitoring capacity on the ground" into EU summit texts. Europe's inspectors...

The utopian dream of a United States of Europe is coming apart at the seams. Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain are all on the verge of default, which would push the rest of the common market into the abyss. For once, Paris is refusing to surrender and continues to fight the inevitable downgrade of France’s credit rating. The European Central Bank isn’t strong enough to do much to prevent a continental banking meltdown. Overall, European economic chaos makes U.S. fiscal indiscipline look manageable. This is slim comfort, however, because in the modern global economy, we all sink or swim together....

A windswept barley field just south of Dundalk seems an unlikely spot for Ireland's capital.But if things had been different, Annagassan near Castlebellingham might have been the principal city on the island of Ireland. Twelve hundred years ago it was the site of Linn Duchaill, one of the first Viking settlements, which rivalled Dublin in size and importance. Folklore said it was there, but all traces of it had disappeared, until a group of archaeologists and local historians set out to prove its existence. Extensive field research and test digs have now done that. What they found was a huge...

A forgotten Famine burial site inside the grounds of a former workhouse in Kilkenny has yielded the remains of nearly 1,000 people, and a wealth of knowledge about how they lived and how they died. AN GORTA MÓR, the Great Hunger, was a time of terrible human drama as Ireland’s poor struggled to survive the ravages of famine and disease. The chance discovery of a Famine-period burial ground in Kilkenny city now helps to tell their story,... Some one million people died and were buried as conditions and finance allowed, with the poorest ending up in burial grounds used by...

Plans to increase the firepower of Europe's bail-out machinery with extra leverage threaten France's AAA rating and risk setting off a dangerous chain of events, a top German institute has warned. Berlin’s DIW institute, one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s five official advisers, said attempts to boost the €440bn (£384bn) EFSF bail-out fund – possibly to €2 trillion – with guarantees to shore up southern Europe would be “poisonous” for France’s credit worthiness. Dr Ansgar Belke, the group’s research chief, said the leverage proposal emerging as part of the EU’s “Grand Plan” to restore confidence is self-defeating. “It counteracts efforts made...

Presidential candidate Martin McGuinness was confronted during his canvass in Athlone this afternoon by the son of a member of the Irish Army who was killed in an incident after the kidnap of Don Tidey in Ballinamore in 1983. David Kelly, whose 35-year-old father Paddy was shot dead, called on Mr McGuinness to name those responsible. Mr McGuinness denied he knew the names of the IRA members involved in the kidnapping of Mr Tidey. He told Mr Kelly that while he sympathised with him, he was not a member of the IRA army council when it happened and repeatedly denied...

A priest wrongly accused of raping a teenager in Kenya and fathering her child has been welcomed back home to his parish in Ireland, reports Kerryman.ie. Father Kevin Reynolds received a standing ovation as he attended Mass in Saint Cuan's Church, Ahascragh, County Galway. The RTE network has apologised to the cleric, accepting that allegations in its Prime Time Investigative program last May, titled A Mission to Pray, were baseless and without any foundation. Fr Kevin had been forced to stand down as parish priest and leave his Galway home while investigations were carried out. At a mass marking his...

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton Saturday told Ireland's Prime Minister and the cream of the country's diaspora that he would host a summit in New York to help boost investment in the euro zone struggler. A veteran of Europe's financial crisis, Ireland gathered a mixture of corporate leaders, actors and comedians in Dublin this weekend to discuss ways of accelerating their homeland's recovery and rebuild its reputation abroad. While Ireland's booming export sector and strong record of attracting foreign investment is building a fragile recovery, Clinton told business leaders and politicians they could do more and that he...

A rock bearing what is believed to be a rare piece of art dating back to the Bronze Age has been discovered on an outcrop alongside a medieval pilgrim route in west Kerry. The discovery two weeks ago of "a perfect spiral" on a rock off the main Cosán na Naomh on the Dingle peninsula, is being assessed by county archaeologist Michael Connolly. Measuring 19.5cm, it was found by local man Colm Bambury between Cill Mhicéadair and Baile an Lochaigh near the foot of Mount Brandon. The area is dotted with standing stones, Ogham and beehive huts and other monuments...

"MY Children" ARE " My Obedient Ones"! Do you see my children? Why Enoch was taken up to "BE" with Me ? It was not by his works but through his "TRUE" and "Fatihful" obedience to BE one with Me for as My Word "BE HOLY" "TRULY" this is Christ like to be a Michael( "AS GOD" ) for I AM "HOLY" for this IS My NAME ! Jude 1 1JUDE, A servant of Jesus Christ (the Messiah), and brother of James, [writes this letter] to those who are called (chosen), dearly loved by God the Father and separated (set...

A conspiratorially minded observer would be hard pressed not to conclude that the European financial crisis is a German plot. Southern Europe, indebted beyond its means and facing impoverishment as the bond-trading vultures detect easy prey, is now looking to Germany as its savior. The financial mess has completed Germany's redemption from pariah to the leader of Europe. … The capstone to Germany's reemergence came in the Bundestag vote on Thursday approving a massive increase in the European Stability Fund to €440 billion. A few parliamentarians protested the bailout, but most docilely approved it. … … It would be no...

A man who burned to death in his home died as a result of spontaneous combustion, an Irish coroner has ruled. West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin said it was the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he had recorded such a verdict. Michael Faherty, 76, died at his home at Clareview Park, Ballybane, Galway on 22 December 2010.... Deaths attributed by some to "spontaneous combustion" occur when a living human body is burned without an apparent external source of ignition. Typically police or fire investigators find burned corpses but no burned furniture. An inquest in Galway...

As the headlines of Greek tragedy and Italian farce continue, one solid national performance has been largely overlooked. And that’s a pity because Ireland’s relative success seems to show that there is a way out for countries like Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain as they struggle with their debts. This is something we might expect the euro zone’s leaders to be trumpeting whenever they can. Of course, like Greece and Portugal, Ireland’s economy was bailed out, back in 2010, and had to promise some pretty harsh austerity to get its cash. But now, while Greek five-year credit default swaps are...