Publisher's Synopsis
When future historians ask what Ireland was like in the bailout years they could do a lot worse than delve into this collection of stories that spoofed the news between 2009 and 2013. Ireland in The Bailout Years contains the best of these stories satirising the news preoccupations of austerity Ireland. Written by Donal Conaty, they were originally published on his online journal. TheMire.net. In recent times many were also published on TheJournal.ie. These pieces offer a humourous and sometimes savage insight into the shabby affairs of the State as Ireland reeled from the ravages of recession, changed governments and reeled once more. Every morning since May 2009 Conaty, a former Irish Times London Correspondent and the author of the IMF bailout comedy The Eighty-Five Billion Euro Man, listened to the news in disbelief. He then logged in to his website and - with a heady mix of anger, humour and incomprehension - made up a plausible alternative to what he had just heard. Now, as Ireland looks to exit the bailout, the best posts from the period are brought together. In Ireland in The Bailout Years, Conaty hilariously highlights the confused and calamitous state of pretty much everything in our public life. Politicians of all stripes, senior civil servants, bankers, trade union officials and the great and good in the mighty media all come under scrutiny. No one is spared - not even Tiger Woods! One day's story might be the sad news that hacking Taoiseach Enda Kenny's phone only revealed that it never rang, or the embarrassing moment when then Taoiseach Brian Cowen forgot to resign during his resignation speech. Of course, Rosanna Davison's breasts come under scrutiny and there was always plenty of scope to despairingly poke fun at Dr James Reilly. Obviously the economy figures large in these stories, as does the need for a scapegoat - this role usually fell to the public servants - but it is not just about the bailout. It is about Ireland during the period of the bailout, about the things that dominated Ireland's public discourse during these difficult times. Many of those things were bailout related, others, like abortion and obesity, had a life of their own. These stories are based on the actual news of the day. Perhaps the most telling thing about the bailout era is that we are still talking about the same issues as it draws to an end as we were at the beginning.
