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Whatever the outcome in the United States elections, the most powerful countries are ruled by elderly men. This fundamental and ominous failure of a new generation to supplant its elders bodes ill for the future.
It is the ordinary people — the pensioners on trollies, the sick interminably waiting on ever-increasing lists, the patients being treated in understaffed hospitals — who will truly suffer from Brexit's immediate body shocks to an already frail healthcare system decimated by years of austerity funding cuts.
Somehow Paisley and McGuinness worked well together. The Chuckle Brothers they were called, an attempt to present them as two buffoons out of their depth. But for ordinary people, it was an endearing image, a tribute to a pair who had brought their respective sides with them in an unlikely peace.
Ireland's election was all about how to repay the country's debts. One hundred and fifty predominantly well-educated and skilled young people are expected to emigrate each day over the next two years; not only because they have no jobs, but because they have no hope.
Most Irish would be content with the suggestion that the push for an Australian Republic was an Irish plot. When Ireland declared itself a republic 60 years ago, it did so without the awkwardness of a referendum or political grandstanding.
Frank O’Shea reviews Andrew Moore’s Francis De Groot: Irish Fascist, Australian Legend.