Anglo Irish Relations

In Ireland, we are prone to gripe on about our neighbours from across the water with mumbles of "700 years..." And in fact, at least for the last 200 years or so of that period, a large part of our cultural identity has evolved around the nature of the relationship between Ireland and Britain; in other words - Anglo Irish relations. For example, we had the Anglo Irish War of 1919 to 1921 (also known as the Tan War, or the War of Independence). We had the Anglo Irish Treaty of 1922, granting the Irish Free State, and then in the 1985 we had the Anglo Irish Agreement, between Lady Thatcher and Grandpa Garrett Fitzgerald. So the words Anglo Irish are rather official and important, given our recent history, and they generally deal with "the English" being difficult, mainly over relinquishing parts of their empire.

However during last two years, the words Anglo Irish have come to mean something else; once more, they are a national preoccupation. However this time, the source of the trouble is not the English, but rather one of our own - Anglo Irish Bank. Like many people, I confess to being somewhat cloudy as to who exactly Anglo Irish are, why they got into the mess that they are in, and more importantly, why the Irish taxpayer is paying their debts. If Brian Lenehan were to introduce a levy on the words "Anglo Irish Bank" with one euro to be collected for each utterance, it is quite likely that RTÉ alone would be fined sufficiently to balance the flailing bank's balance books by the end of the autumn schedule. But for all of the bandying about of those three little words, how much do we actually understand about what is going on? Do you, like me, just need someone to sit down and explain it, slowly, in nice plain English?

Well if you do, you're in luck. Thankfully, the Irish Times has presented us with a Crash Course on Anglo Irish Bank.