Far away hills are green

People might think that John Gormley got a tough start as a government minister considering that he is a member of an extreme Green Party. The incinerator got permission in his own constituency. He also found himself joined with Fianna Fail, which also means an alignment with the builders. Hardly the stuff of the Greens. Then he had a stroke of luck with the Sliabh Aughty mountains. The greenest of the green. To look at it like that is actually a misjudgement.

To understand this you need to understand the real problem of the Green parties, both in Ireland and elsewhere. You could start by asking yourself a simple question. If the environment is now the number one political issue around the world why then are the green parties small and struggling in most places? This is a very fair question. The reason for this is that there is a huge non political green movement out there and actually bigger than the party. This block is made up of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Eco Warriors, New Agers and Hippies.

Far from co-operating with these the green parties actually despise them. They are taking the place of a huge vote that would bring the green political parties to full size. If they were gone or drastically reduced, then people who are passionate about the environment would have no where to go except vote Green at the elections. It was very noticeable that while John Gormley showed rage at the incinerator he did not actually do anything about it. I believe that his rage was a performance. In a peculiar way he needs the incinerator and the builders. By having a certain amount of dirt on his hands he can dispel or form a gap from the non political green block who see themselves as purer than pure as far as the environment is concerned. But a gap is not enough. The non political greens have to be brought down to size not just in Ireland but internationally. What makes this difficult is that the Green parties are the offshoot of the other and not vice versa.

Most people would see the Sliabh Aughty as the sister of the Burren whatever about the red herring or the hen harrier or whatever. The mountains complement each other because while they are not far apart they are different to each other in every way. You could say that the Burren is a freak of nature while the Aughtys is more understandable. The close proximity also means that the Aughtarians can guess what may be before them. Will there be letters of words beginning with "Geo" and "Eco".

Will the I.F.A. cave in as completely as on the Burren. The Sliabh Aughtarians have to make these judgements themselves.

The situation on the Burren has been closely watched not only by mountain people in Ireland but also other parts of Europe. In the mountains of Spain for instance a change is beginning to take place. For two hundred years all the mountain people had to do was make it as far as the coast and they were made for life. Now for the first time the Spanish authorities are clamping down on further development along the coastline. People are going back to a place they never bothered to change for 200 years. The idea of American style National Parks does not appeal to them at all.

What are the Aughtarians supposed to think. I would say take a wider view than the Burren or the Slieve Blooms. Take a European wide view. After all this is where your trouble is coming from.

Francis Brew
Francis Brew lives in Tubber in North Clare. His book will be out later in the year.

(c) Clare County Express