The dark underbelly of Ireland’s society
I love Ireland. Anyone who reads this blog or who knows me personally knows how much I do. Some days, however, like today, I feel ashamed for being a part of a society that lets beggars sit half-naked, without shoes, without pants in the bitter cold on one of the busiest shopping streets of Ireland (Henry Street, just off O’Connell Street). People walking past carry shopping bags of expensive stores without glancing at a man sitting there begging for money, or if they glance, they show contempt: “How dare he sit here like that?!” Perhaps this image does not fit in many people’s reality, but it doesn’t make it a lesser reality because they deny this person’s hardship. If anything, people who show contempt for someone so poor and so…