The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Irish Free State came and went amid calls for December 6 to become a national holiday.
There was no official State ceremony to mark the occasion, which was maybe just as well as a good proportion of our population might be inclined to think that there was little to celebrate.
The parents of children who were sleeping in cars outside Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda because there was no room in the overflowing paediatric A&E department would not be in the mood to mark the occasion.
When a nation can’t look after its sick children it might not be the best time to mark what some claim is “100 years of unbroken democracy”.
The 813,600 patients waiting for treatment, or to be seen at an outpatient clinic by a consultant for the first time, might also feel little reason to celebrate the nation’s 100th birthday.
The 11,400 men, women and children in emergency accommodation are also unlikely to be breaking out the bunting to celebrate the fact that after 100 years this State still can’t provide nearly enough homes for its people.
That is not entirely true for in recent years it has not been a case of can’t when it comes to building what were once known as council housing, it was a case of “won’t”.
Still, the fact that democracy has survived here during a century which saw the rise and fall of fascism and a world war that devastated Europe is no small feat.
While there was a bloody civil war which reverberated down the decades there were no revolutions or any real attempts to topple democratically-elected governments.
Then again had there not been the safety valve of emigration during times of mass unemployment there well might have been an uprising.
Perhaps the State’s greatest failing was the decision to hand over the country’s education and health services to the Catholic Church.
Instead of trying to form a more humane society, until relatively recently Irish governments tended to outsource social services to religious orders with disastrous consequences for tens of thousands of women and children.
While it now seems outrageous, before laws could be passed by the Oireachtas they had to be vetted by the bishops. Indeed grovelling subservience to the Church was worn like a badge of honour by some politicians who openly admitted that they wouldn’t enact legislation that went against the wishes of the hierarchy.
Former Fine Gael Taoiseach John A Costello made no secret of where his allegiance lay when he said: “I am an Irishman second, I am a Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong.”
Ironically Mr Costello made the above comment on the resignation of then Health Minister Noel Browne in 1951 after his Mother and Child Scheme to provide free medical care was scuppered by the bishops.
And we wonder why the Church could persecute women and children with impunity until relatively recently.
But perhaps the young State’s greatest achievement was its ability to provide good quality affordable housing for families at a time when the country was on its knees financially. The huge council house building programmes by the local authorities from the early 1930s onwards stands as a testament to what can be achieved if the will is there.
A fitting way to celebrate the nation’s 100th birthday would be to initiate similar building programmes that would provide homes for every citizen who needs one.
All that stands in the way of such an achievement is not religion but the free market ideology which has put profit before the welfare of the people.
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