This was the title of all articles on Ireland prior to independence so I can only assume that it will again be the title of all articles from yesterday.
As one of the rats who left the sinking ship (despite that then it was still floating well) and in France surrounded by French and all other members of the EU by first reaction is embarrassment as I am sympathised with about my old , infirm , relative which is my native country.

A friend in Spain says that the most frequently heard sentence on the lips of the media there is “But we are not Ireland”.- by which we can infer that they mean they had no Iberian Tiger economy to be prodigal with.

Of course I am not detached from Ireland in any real emotional or fiscal way, our pensions (created by ourselves over our long working lives) come from Ireland, we have three daughters , one and a half grandchildren and countless relations and friends all scraping their livings there and the great majority of my customers also come from Ireland.

But still the distance does make me a little detached and the goings on and revelations of the last few years have made me fear that instead of dragging ourselves out of trouble we were digging ourselves further in.
Therefore my embarrassment is tempered by feelings of relief ; the elderly infirm relative is at last being taken into care.

My brother Ted wrote an optimistic letter to The Paper last week which I quoted a few blogs ago.
I can only hope that his optimism is justified.

I do not blog ever about politics, this is as close as I intend to go, but to not mention the huge elephantine presence of the IMF in the Irish room was impossible.