`You'll find a lot has changed," the taxi-driver said when he realised he had a family of returned emigrants in his cab. For the rest of the journey from the airport, he regaled us with stories of soaring property prices, clamouring immigrants, labour shortages and urban renewal.
"There you are now," he said, as he proudly dropped us at the new, glass-and-tile-style Connolly Street train station, a perfect illustration of the new, confident, prosperous Ireland he had been telling us about. Inside the modish exterior, we found the station was filthy. The only trolley we could locate was halfway up a very long platform. It took 20 minutes to find the left-luggage department because all the signs point to where the new facility will be, but none to the portacabin that's currently in use. And when we tried to return our trolley, it refused to relinquish our pound coin. So much for new and different. Since that first day, the experience has been the same. Everybody wants to welcome us home to a new Ireland, a vibrant, happening place where the rate of change will set us spinning. But to us, it seems like things are pretty much as they used to be.
On RTE radio, the same talking heads (minus one) yak-yak their way through a tedious talk and mediocre music format that was already jaded a decade ago. On RTE television, it is still impossible to find a single homegrown programme that isn't a rip-off of a (better) British product. Ditto the magazine shelves at the newsagents. In the theatres, Salome is showing at the Gate again, Lughnasa has just finished another run in the Abbey, while out in the suburbs they're still enjoying Goodbye to the Hill. This summer's big theatrical draw will be Riverdance. Litter still flutters unhindered down the street and Dublin Bay is still awash with sewage. Even a moderately adequate public transport system remains in the realm of fantasy. Hospitals, courts, prisons, schools, mental health services, nursing homes and childcare services are still a national disgrace.
Over at the Dail, the two old tweedledee-tweedledum political parties are as entrenched as ever. Our elected representatives are stuck in the same posture they were holding when we left: heads down, eyes averted, fingers crossed. The voice of the left is still muted, radical politics remain marginalised and the prolifers are still calling for a referendum on abortion. I could go on. And on. . . It would be exaggerating to claim that nothing has changed. Certainly, some people have a lot more money than before and a lot of people have some more money. You can get a decaff double-espresso cafe latte now if you know where to go. But - like the much vaunted "shake-up" at RTE radio that moved Marian to the morning and Joe to the afternoon - it's a tinkering, not a transformation.
For at least a century and a half, the Irish have been an acquisitive people. Today's technowhizzkids might seem a million miles removed from the gombeen men of old, but the difference is one of style, not substance. The status symbols the better-off use to set themselves apart may have changed - fields of land and pony-and-traps then, penthouse apartments and BMWs now - but the acquisitiveness and the mefeinism is the same.
As is our complacency. The constant boasting about how great the Irish are would be embarrassing even if it were true. Here is a randomly-chosen, typical quote from a recent newspaper article: "There is now a real surge of power in the Celtic psyche where the Irish in the world are seen as models for business acumen, drive, ambition, political and social progress and achievements in the arenas of music, sport and literature." Leaving aside the question of what on earth the "Celtic pysche" might be, this sort of self-congratulatory twaddle is completely deluded. As someone who has just returned from the outside world, can I tell you that the best-known export from this country is the Irish pub?
After that it is boyz-girlz clonebands, Michael Flatley-style dance-shows and writers of popular fiction like Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes. Nice work if you can get it, but hardly a worldshaking accomplishment. Our best-known sports figure is Michelle Smith. The most consequential Irish literature comes from the North, not the Celtic Tiger. With the exception of U2, I can't think of any world-class act in any field from the Republic that sets itself high standards of excellence and originality.
Meanwhile, back at home, an obsession with the past eats away at public life, as it always did. It used to be our glorious nationalism that gripped us; now it's our ignominious corruption. Charlie Haughey et al perform exactly the same function for Irish society today as the perfidious Brits did years ago. Gnawing at the past permits us to ignore the scandals playing out under our noses. Like the thousand-plus children who slept on the street last night, for example, or the hell-holes to which we are happy to confine our old people. The Irish did not singlehandedly create this economic boom. It arose from a complex combination of global events and forces, many of which were - and still are - beyond our control. We will be judged not on the fact that it happened, but on what we succeed in doing with it.
Our gung-ho materialism mirrors that of Thatcher's Britain or Reagan's America 15 years ago. As usual Ireland arrived late to the trend, an arrival time which should allow us to look and learn from the mistakes of those who went before, but somehow never does. The social devastation that monetarism left behind in the US and UK is now obvious to all - but still we tolerate our own little Thatcher-come-lately, Charlie McCreevy, who intends to use the billions of pounds of budget surplus to fund tax cuts. Tax cuts, in a country where public services are at Third World standards and the gap between rich and poor is already widening alarmingly. There is an alternative. We could set high standards for our public services and sincerely attempt to meet them. We could plan our burgeoning towns and suburbs to be pleasant places in which future generations can thrive. Our Government could use the popularity bought by prosperity to show leadership around heated issues like immigration.
Our national broadcasting and arts institutions could foster new talent, invest in innovation, take risks, value excellence. In short, we could seriously attempt to make our new-found wealth work for the greater good, rather than just for those at the top. Now that really would make a change.
