Ireland Goes Bust

[Jan Klimkowski]

The analogy with the Great Famine does indeed resonate.

I have drawn attention to the following before, and do so again, using wikipedia for its pithy summary:

George Gideon Oliver Osborne,[1] MP, PC (born 23 May 1971[2] in Paddington, London[3]) is a British Conservative politician. He is currently the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, a role he was appointed to in May 2010, and has been the Member of Parliament for Tatton since 2001.

Osborne is part of the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy, known in Ireland as the Ascendancy. He is the heir to the Osborne baronetcy (of Ballentaylor, in County Tipperary, and Ballylemon, in County Waterford).[4][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Osborne

The Protestant Ascendancy (Irish: An Chinsealacht Phrotastúnach), usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church (the Church of Ireland and Church of England, both being the State Churches) during the 17th through 19th centuries and, in a portion of the island, into the 20th century). The sense of Ascendancy is seen as excluding primarily Roman Catholics, as they have comprised the majority of the Irish population island-wide, but this can be misleading, as members of the Presbyterians and other Protestant denominations, along with non-Christians, were also excluded politically and socially. Even the majority of Protestants were effectively excluded from the ascendancy, being too poor to vote. In general, the privileges of the Ascendancy were resented by Irish Catholics, who remained the majority of the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Ascendancy

More at wiki and elsewhere.... :flute: