Native resilience could yet transform this disaster into an opportunity

Probably the best change of all is the rediscovery of shame.

During the boom years, shame disappeared, replaced by a nouveau riche urge for getting, spending and displaying. It wasn’t enough to keep up with the Jones’s. You had to be way ahead of the Jones’s

This newspaper last week ran a photograph right across the front page. A deeply sad photograph showing hundreds of people lining up in Church Street, Dublin, to get free food from the Capuchin friars. At first glance, the picture evoked those black and white photographs of Americans queuing at soup kitchens during the Great Depression.