http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1540204,00.html
…This is Roy Hattersley, former Labour cabinet minister, writing in yesterday’s Guardian (sorry, Gary! 
). He thinks that a united Ireland is inevitable…
Steve
I agree it is inevitable, but I think they are far from that point as of yet. I think it will take at least another 25 years, i.e it will require a newer generation to grow up a NI that makes less and less sense as a separate entity in the eyes of the inhabitants (vs the eyes of outsiders).
How far are the Prods from unity? Just look at the new round of murders today between the various Prod “liberation” gangs that have refused to disarm. These groups are already starting to make no sense even to themselves.
I am told that many people in the north do their shopping south of the border because it is cheaper (somethimes). This kind of thing will also have a slow effect on changing attitudes. Probably the less outsiders interfere, the sooner the people living there will get on with their lives and amalgamation will happen on its own before it happens on paper.
djm
To quote the article:
“The pressure to combine has been increased by the growth of the republic’s economy. Gross domestic product per head is now higher in Ireland than in the United Kingdom. Northern farmers do not enjoy the “regime” that has made their southern competitors prosperous. The old jokes about Irish devotion to antique inefficiency are contradicted by signs of progress that mock the north. Miles were changed to kilometres overnight. A smoking ban in public places was peacefully accepted by the allegedly self-destructive peasantry. Thanks to tax breaks, picturesque hovels have been replaced by holiday homes.”
Makes sense to me.
This is the only part that doesn’t make sense to me. Or I guess it makes sense to a materialistic society. But if being prosperous means they’re going to suburbanize (Californicate) Ireland, I’d prefer antique inefficiency. I cruised through a couple of Irish real estate websites and saw things that made me queasy - blocky houses strung out around cul-de-sacs and advertised as “holiday homes”, often in areas that were once pastoral farms with old rock walls.
The only reason there’s still quaint parts of Ireland to go back to is because of its history of poverty. In my mind, being poor saved Ireland for a while…
So the North may want to remain the North because that’s where people will go if they want to see the Ireland that was. This would bring its own bizarre prosperity.
Hehe you’ll be in for a surprise when you come to Ireland next month 
When I first read Weeks’ post I went looking for pictures of what the tax incentives have done t onice seaside resorts like Kilkee and Lahinch over the past eight years or so, couldn’t find any unfortunately. Bungalow blight, it’s everywhere.
On the other hand, if you’d live in an old cottage for a while you could imagine reasons for tearing it down and rebuild something more damp-proof, I can tell you that much.
Peter, I guess you can’t believe everything you read in the papers or at least one shouldn’t assume a certain claim applies to everywhere.
That little place you show looks just fine to me.
I have no problem with damp-proofing a place. Just hate seeing the 3000 square foot jobbies going up - nobody, but nobody needs that kind of room. Unless you’re bringin’ the sheep in with you…
It’s pretty bad actually and you wouldn’t believe the speed at which it is happening unfortunately, builders and developers gone crazy.
I saw a lovely one there a while ago, at a backroad near Cree is a lovely old thatched cottage, one of the few left around here. They put in the U-PVC doors and windows. :roll:
Prosperity…damned if you get it, damned if you don’t. Doesn’t seem to be much of an in-between. Where the hell do the humble people go to live in the end?
It is tragic to see the old places go. This happens around here with the old farm houses and barns and old houses in town. The problem is that it is usually much more expensive to properly restore or to do a lot of repairs on an old place (if you can find someone that is even able to do the work) than to tear it down and build something new. I think only pretty well off people can afford to do it or else people who have the time and skills to do it themselves. To replace a window frame here with wood is much more expensive than using some ugly stuff.
The new places are usually very ugly because it is expensive to hire a good architect and plastic and metal are cheap and cheaper to maintain than wood which is what was used here. But as Peter says, you can’t blame people for wanting to live in a comfortable home and many can’t afford something more in harmony with the land. (Although I have seen some awfully big English Tudor-style farm houses----Lord help us.) A “hovel” may be picturesque from the outside, but in addition to discomforts, you can’t keep the place clean because things are crumbling and bugs and rodents are coming in, etc.
And as cities expand developers buy up farm land (or pretty land) for a high price. You can’t blame the people living there for selling because many never made enough to save up much for retirement and this is their one chance to be able to have a decent old age. And no farmer can afford to buy it. The developers squeeze on as many places as they can, as in that picture Montana posted—it looks like there are two front doors on those places so could they be duplexes? Squeezing on an insane number of places makes more money for the developer but also makes the places cheaper since you aren’t buying much land—so more people can afford to live in ugly developments than in nice ones.
When I see an old house in really good shape or a new one that is built to fit in with the land around it, I know that rich people live there. I’m not blaming anyone, it’s just how it is.
I know this thread is about Ireland and I don’t know anything about the situation there. I’m just talking about Iowa, but I think there could be some similarities in this situation just about everywhere.
Something that struck me is that recent movies that are supposed to represent “quaint ol’ Ireland” are being filmed in the Isle of Man, e.g Waking Ned Divine, The Boys & Girl of County Clare. This should give a clear indication of how quickly Ireland is modernizing.
I can’t imagine anyone wanting to pay for the reality of living in an old thatched cottage - filth, vermin, rot, dampness, etc.
djm
From the article:
The inexorable pressure of economic reality is dragging the six counties closer and closer to the republic. Where economics leads, politics is bound to follow.
I’m not sure this is so true. Canada and the US are showing pretty clearly that you can have a high degree of economic integration without political integration.
Peter responds in a measured way as as ever. It’s all very nice having chocolate-box dinky thatched cottages for condescending, ignorant tourists to come and salivate over, but people in rural Ireland/ Cornwall/wherever want to live in the 21st century like everyone else, believe it or not, not in some golden age of glorious peasantry, wearing a smock and leaning over the five-barred gate sucking on a straw. Now bad planning decisions and the usurping of “desirable” rural areas for the pleasure of four-weeks-a-year Volvo Estate-driving second home owners - that’s what we should be railing against. 
Steve
My son goes to an old primary school which was built in 1830 on the top of a hill serving two valleys. Seven years ago you could drive up and have, across open country side, a stunning view of the coast, roughly from the Cliffs of Moher on the northern end all the way down to Mt Brandon on a clear day. There were two houses. Now there are ten on the same half a mile stretch of road, and more to be built. A ribbon development of large suburban houses, completely blocking the view from the road.
It’s something that’s happening everywhere.
I have no problem with “modernization”. While my home growing up was far from rustic - we did have to contend with cisterns (no city water), septic tanks (no sewers), 6 party line phones, and oil heat (no gas and propane lines would freeze).
But it still pains me to see all the farms I grew up around being turned into huge, $500,000 plus homes, on postage stamp size lots, with the overcrowded schools and streets and all the other problems that go into urban sprawl. The county I grew up in is the fastest growing area in this part of the country. It’s totally mind boggling the amount of building going on there - and it’s REALLY mind boggling to try to think of where the heck people are coming up with the money to buy these homes!
My bus driver’s pig farm is now a research facility for the company I work for. Makes for some good one liners in meetings about creating the same type of crap that Mr. S’s pigs used to.
That’s what I’ll be when I go to Ireland in September: condescending and ignorant (wouldn’t want to break the mold, doncha know). :roll:
Not all things that are old are broken-down and dreary, just like all new things aren’t beautiful and nice. If they were (new=beautiful), you wouldn’t have all the rich folk Cynth talked about going in and fixing up older places. Older places can sometimes have better construction and a lot more detail (and care) than newer places. And they don’t take up acres of land.
Did you know that the average human in the western world (particularly the US) takes up more space now just for living (not including things like farming where you use the land for your occupation) than at any other time in history? At a point when we’re running out of room; or at least running out of nice room.
But I agree with you wholeheartedly, Steve, that we should be fighting bad planning and ostentatious second homes (when many can’t afford their first). That just accentuates problems.
I think that if that method were truly so, it would be the rule rather than the exception.
A perfect example of this is my cousin out in Connemara. They had a “quaint” cottage as recently as 1985. No electric, no running water, etc.
They built a new, “modern” home in 1986, built directly in front of the old cottage. I asked my cousin why he didn’t modernize the old cottage. And then he (with a laugh) explained the facts of it, in plain economic terms.
Well, I did say “sometimes” and the claim had mainly to do with the basic structure, not all the newfangled things that have come along recently (ya know, running water, electrical wiring, etc.).
Yes, my house had some old knob and tube wiring and old plumbing can be a pain. I know these things. But the things that cause the problems are all the modern “requirements”. I know no one wants to live in a place with just candles and an outhouse. But you don’t have a lot to maintain or upgrade much that way… 
I know what you’re saying, Montana, but those “basic structures” of most of the cottages that I’ve seen simply can’t be modernized from an engineering standpoint.
For example, the ah, “mortar” that is used to hold the stones together in my cousin’s old cottage is made from - get this - the crushed coral that was washed up on the beach nearby. You can see all manner of seashells and bits of crustaceans in it… and simply poking at it with a finger caused it to crumble (and I’ll grant you, the cottage is now 90+ years on) but when you consider having to excavate the dirt floor in order to pour concrete, and the place would literally crumble around you as you’re doing that type of heavy work.
I like the old houses, Irish farmhouses are usually very basic, even if they can have lovely stonework, especially the fireplaces (but try find one that sends the smoke up the chimney instead of into the room and out the front and backdoor). It’s a terrible shame they are disappearing so rapidly but living in a stone cottage myself I have come to see why.
Planning in Ireland is atrocious and i won’t even start on it. You’ll see wha tI mean, there’s plenty yet to enjoy but it’s not by far the place it was twenty five years ago, or even ten.
No doubt - developers (with money in hand) have been allowed to run amok. The stuff going up along N17 in Galway (near Oranmore) is particularly ugly (a lot of it is industrial and retail)… and this is the first view that locals and visitors alike get when entering Galway city.
Then there’s more of it going up along the coast road as well.
On the other hand, all that building has kept a great many people employed for some time.