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YOU WILL NOT meet many men born and bred in Christian Ireland, practising Ramadan. My friend, a devout Muslim, convinced me to give it a try and following an attack on our local Mosque, I decided to join the fasting in solidarity.
Let me be clear, I say I did Ramadan, and I did, but it was just for a day, I couldn’t hack it. My work colleague, Tahir still makes fun of me trying to do Ramadan for just one single day. “I thought you were going to cry,” he laughs as I remember longing for just one sip of water, but I was humbled to learn another lesson from neighbours in my multicultural community.
The violence of the Finsbury Park attack belies the truth of an area that is in fact, a cultural melting pot, a picture of diversity at its finest, that is not only a happy place but also an example of how things could be in the world.
I wasn’t cut out for fasting
I wasn’t cut out for Ramadam but was impressed by the experience. I was forced into a sense of gratitude. It’s not just about fasting Tahir explains:
The fasting is nearly irrelevant, we don’t think impure thoughts, we don’t argue, it’s a meditative time where we are grateful for the things we have and we focus on what God has given us as we work through our day.
The food and water was one thing but do you know how hard it is to not have an impure thought for a day? Let alone the whole month of Ramadan. No cursing to yourself when the bus is late? It was another lesson learnt from the blessing that I live in amongst people from all corners of the globe, and every day is a day to learn from other people. Even after the attack they called for calm and returned to prayers.
You’ll meet people from all corners
My friends in Ireland cancelled visits to London “with everything going on over there”, but if you visit the area around our local mosque you’ll find a unique place. You will meet people from all corners, all beliefs, all backgrounds and experience this brilliant corner of North London and learn that there may be square pegs and round holes but that makes for something a bit special. I told them to come over here and take some notes because here’s the picture.
I live here with my Portuguese girlfriend, my neighbours from Jamaica, and Venezuela. Sheila will not tell me how old she is when I help her into her house most days with her shopping but she will always remind me in her thick cockney accent that she is in fact from, Waterford.
At the Turkish Supermarket, we shop for everything. Fruit and vegetables of all shapes and sizes are stacked outside pouring onto the pavement while workers re arrange and re stack. Old batteries and iphone 3 chargers, you name it they have it. When do they close? Never, and some nights when I can’t sleep I’ll walk down there, for a chat and a cherry coke watching football reruns and learning Turkish words.
That’s the way it is around here
My mate Jimmy is English and like most people around here, we love our local team, Arsenal FC. Match days, people of all creeds and colours walk the streets around Emirates stadium wearing the red and white of the Gunners, and afterwards, we buy some Red Stripe Jamaican Lager and exchange it with the street vendors for the finest Jamaican Jerk chicken.
The Chinese restaurant is next to the Spanish café while the Italians make pizza next to the Vietnamese and when a newcomer to the area asks me for directions to our local mosque, I know the way. Straight ahead, till you see an Irish pub. Take a right at The Auld Triangle and you will see the Mosque, it’s practically next door.
That’s the way it is around here. Now I just have to convince Tahir to break his fast at the Auld Triangle.
Stephen Mullan is a stand up comedian and writer. He started his work in comedy on the London circuit, and performs in the UK and Ireland. He writes on all things comedy, food, sport and current affairs. He is currently working out of Lisbon, Portugal for the summer before relocating to Dublin at the end of the year. Twitter and Instagram: @stephenjmullan.
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Lads, it’s been emotional. See ye in 20 years when we lose the run of ourselves again.
Please accept this gift on behalf of the Irish people of 450 three bed semi d’s, 1200 apartments, 3 hotels and a partridge in a pear tree.
Lol lol love it
20 years?…that’s optimistic.
Instead of arriving every quarter they’ll be back twice a year until our debts are paid off, which is reckoned to be sometime in the late 2040s – if we have strong enough economic growth, inflation etc.
On through the fog….
We all partied blah, blah, blah …
Note to Government Hacks;
Could you please let the Irish people know where it says that a lender of last resort can become the Government of First ? …………
Can’t really see what the big deal is. All we’re doing is changing lenders. We still owe a couple of hundred billion.
But you’ve made such a big deal about our loss of sovereignty. Just as we are about to get it back, now you say “so what”. Typical of the whingers here…
O’Reilly. Sure we’re getting our sovereignty back, but at what price? Noonan and co decided to saddle the Irish people with bank debt in order to get our sovereignty back. Deal of the century or what!!
Sovereignty is gone, the fiscal treaty was passed.The IMF will still have a say as long as 75% of the loan is outstanding.
You guys are what’s known as a moving Target…Yet to accept any of the progress made. It makes you wonder about motives which look more & more about tribal politics. In other words, no matter what the gov party’s do, it will never be enough…
O Reilly is any of my comment untrue?
No progress was. Made the can was kicked down the road they’ll be back for another pound of flesh.
O’Reilly. The Government are only worried about protecting themselves and their big shot buddies. All they have done since coming to power is pass on the consequences of greed to the little people.
Oh hark at the minister for smarmy trolls o’reilly has awoken.
Be real. We are not getting our sovereignty back. We will still have to continue with Troika conditions, adgphere to their austerity poison and will continue to be vulnerable to the markets.
As a grossly excessive borrowed nation, Ireland has very little real autonomy. The only autonomy we have is to decide not to increase income taxes on the super wealthy and on the very high income earners. We also have the autonomy to preserve large pensions for politicians and the judiciary.
The fiscal treaty was not passed ; There was only one referendum; there is a long-established tradition in Ireland of European Treaties requiring a second plebiscite for complete ratification , a new Government can call a second referendum on it any time they want to !
A large portion of the “couple of hundred billion” debt comes not from the bank bailouts, but the accumulated deficits built up since 2007 as well as government debt carried over from before then.
Ryan,
Ireland was actually running a budget surplus in the years leading up to the bank bailout and our total government debt was about €47 billion in 2007. I think we were the least publically indebted county in the Eurozone.
We have moved from this stable position to owing the monstrous sum of €215 billion.
The main reason for this is that the true cost of the bank bailout is over €113 billion and most of it has been added to the national debt.
The National Pension Reserve Fund and general exchequer fund were raided for €17.5 billion and transferred to the European Financial Stability Facility & Mechanism (EFSF&M) funds. The EU then generously allowed us to borrow €67.5 billion from the EFSF&M which we are paying back with interest. €64 billion of this has been used directly cover private and illegitimate banking debt. In this way the EU gets to have the eurozone banking system stabilized at the expense of the Irish people and we get to pay for the privilege via the interest we pay on the debt. This does not include the €32 billion also borrowed that we have pumped into NAMA to indirectly prop up the banks by taking the bad commercial property loans off their books. Adding the 3 figures together (17.5 + 64 +32) gives a total cost of around €113 billion and counting for the bank bailout so far. Most of this money has been borrowed and the interest payments make up a major component of our current annual budget deficits
This just means they are gonna take off the latex gloves :) Still gonna effectively call the shots. It’s my sons I feel most sorry for, they never even saw the Celtic Tiger but will pay for it for years. F U Bertie and Biffo
The tiger was only ever seen by a few those with their hands in the pie. The rest unfortunately we’re sold a dream that couldn’t last. I am thankful that even during the tiger I was not earning enough to qualify for any of the mad money. A lucky escape
Initial financing[edit]
The money to launch The Irish Press was raised in the United States during the Irish War of Independence by a bond drive to finance the First Dail. The amount raised was $5 million ($55 million adjusted for inflation as of 2011).[3] However, 60 percent of this money was left in various banks in New York. Nobody has been able to explain why Éamon de Valera ordered the bulk of the money to be left in New York when he returned to Ireland in late 1920.[4] In 1927, as a result of legal action between the Irish Free State government and de Valera, a court in New York ordered that the bond holders be paid back outstanding money due to them. However de Valera’s legal team had anticipated the ruling and had prepared for the outcome. A number of circulars were sent to the bond holders asking them to sign over their holdings to de Valera. The bond holders were paid 58 cents to the dollar. This money was then used as start up capital to launch The Irish Press.[4] Following the 1933 Irish General Election de Valera used his Dáil majority to pass a measure allowing the bond holders to be paid the remaining 42 percent of the money still owed.
Bondholders etc. have been doing very well out of Ireland for years ! DEV was their Baby !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irish_Press
apologies link for above script referenced ; where is the editing function on this blog?
Really………. Last little pat on the head for Enda then so….
Does this mean we can all come home now ? I’m in New Zealand, heaps more in Aussie and all over the world I would imagine
Yes. Come home.
Try again in 20 years when the Troika is really gone. They will still be meddling in Irish affairs until the loan is paid off.
20 years…..your optimistic.
This is the last visit of the Troika ?, with the interest bill this year alone on our bailout debt at well over eight billion euro, who would bet on it.
They must be having a right laugh, no, you don’t need another bailout, but you’re about as shaky as a giraffe on stilts.
So our plan on hoping they would forget didn’t work then ?
Lets get them a few pints in Kehoe’s later on
No..I can’t afford it !!
I will lend you the money, it does come with some conditions though
I hope the door doesn’t hit them on their way out.
Pure nonsense !! You’d think ireland was debt free they way they spin this troika is going no where !! Enda thinks were all stupid .. Least we forget he put €28.000 debt on all our heads and or nation for the next 40 yrs . Traitors
Oh don’t worry they’ll be back in a few months, maybe a year, but just remember they left us with a nice sizeable debt…
A debt that grew by 20 billion in the last year even though the government took 4 billion out of the economy.
Interest on loans in the hundreds of billions is crazy especially when it is compounded.
Right by the short and curlies…
And these fools can’t see what’s really going on…
Not enough young smart politicians
You’d swear we were the first country in history to accept an IMF loan with the wailing and gnashing of teeth here. This is a step in the right direction. It will be good to exit the bailout. The government has kept things at a reasonably even keel. Stop tearing your hair out.
People in debt are trapped, forced into servile repaymants to mafia banks, and cannot sell up and escape. Government fodder! Eco tax rises anyone?
We will be saddled with this Hugh debt for the next 30 years-question is will this nation have learned a lesson?..there’s no such thing as a free lunch…
Free lunch you must be talking bout banksters and bondholders or TDs .
Didnt read the article had a look at the picture though and all i see is a traitor and a criminal .
Hey the goodfellas are in town.
Thank you to the Troika and the FG/LAB Government for placing a noose around the necks of generations of future Irish citizens. Farewell Troika, thanks a bunch.
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