Madam, – As the golden parachutes of brass-necked bankers continue to blitz our country, I was tangentially reminded of Colm Tóibín’s beautiful address at an Ireland Literature Exchange event (Life Culture, November 18th), declaring that literature is news that remains news. If only our news that remains news was the stuff of fiction.
Along with my wife and our two young children, I will be re-emigrating this summer and I doubt that the news that continues to be news will look less frustrating and maddening from a distance.
Having studied and worked abroad during the so-called boom years, we wanted to be close to our extended family and to bring our years of highly-trained work experience to bear on what we had hoped would be a new, post-boom Ireland.
But, as a young family, we cannot afford to support stupendous bank bailouts and the other corollaries of a continued national obsession with property. Nor can we afford, as driven and ambitious professionals, the soft cost of corruption and cronyism that blight the many levels of official Ireland.
As a previous letter writer (Cian Caffrey, April 18th) wrote from Australia, my new position in the United States will expect me to work very hard.
I was hired without pull or personal favour, on the basis of merit alone and will only be retained on that basis. In return we will get to raise our family in an affordable and culturally vibrant town nestled in a geographically beautiful valley offering an array of outdoor activities, all only hours from Washington DC. For those who continue to be obsessed with property, the cost of a lovely house in a respectable part of town is less than half of what it costs in a similar sized town in Ireland.
This is not the stuff of fiction, simply the way the rest of the world works.
And in 20 years time the news in Ireland will still be the news that remains news and my children can read all about it from a safe distance. – Yours, etc,