Democratic revolution an essential element in our economic recovery

THERE is a chink of light and it is not an oncoming train. It is at least an irony and perhaps a pun that Ireland exited the bailout on Gaudete Sunday.

‘Gaudete’ meaning rejoice, comes from the first words of the Mass of that day; Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete/Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Enda Kenny played the preacher to perfection last Sunday night. It is eerily strange that as everything apparently changes, it really stays the same.

Long dark days always create a yearning for light. Priestly vestments, in traditions only recently discarded, were literally lightened. On that Sunday they changed from the penitential purple of Advent to a lighter rose colour that intimated The Light that would shortly come but was not yet to be seen.