I read two interesting stories in this morning's paper regarding Ireland. The country currently suffers from a 12.4 percent unemployment rate - the second-highest unemployment rate among the sixteen countries using the euro, after Spain. This is the result of a rather reckless and speculative period of prosperity in Ireland that came to a crashing halt when the global economy did.
The people of the Irish town of Ennis, anyway, got some good cheer from one of their favorite sons - Muhammad Ali. It has long since been proven that Ali had an Irish great-grandfather, Abe Grady, who emigrated from Ennis, in County Clare, to America just before the Civil War. Ali visited the town recently and received a hero's welcome, the residents happy to claim him as one of their own. A champion of human rights, Ali, I'm sure, expresses interest in and appreciates the nine hundred years of oppression the Irish had to go through. Heck, he's one of us!
Ireland continues to suffer under the weight of its history as well as under its current malaise, and I'm certainly happy that Ali's presence in his great-grandfather's hometown lightened the load and give a glimmer of possibility to the townspeople. Call him the Great Green Hope.
Kelly green, that is. :-)
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