In just one year we’ve all become shareholders in Cowen’s nightmare

WASN’T it Queen Elizabeth who first used the phrase “annus horribilis” to refer back to a particularly bad period in her long reign?

Tue, 05 May, 2009 - 01:00

Fergus Finlay

Fergus Finlay is a former political activist and adviser to three governments, the former head of the children's charity Barnardos, a writer and a broadcaster.

On Thursday, our Taoiseach celebrates (if that’s the word) his first birthday in office. He must surely be looking back on the last year as an “annus bloody awfullis”.

Back then, it all looked so different. On the day Brian Cowen was appointed Taoiseach, our newspapers were reporting that the financial regulator was investigating the “spreading of false rumours about Anglo Irish Bank”. A shop in Suffolk Street in Dublin fetched approximately €10 million on the commercial market.