The luck o' the Irish needs all the help it can get

Sunday Tribune 14 March

This Wednesday, Brian Cowen will hand a bowl of weeds to the world's most powerful man. Only the Irish could get away with giving weeds as gifts. Anybody else might get a smack in the chops.
The shamrock ceremony in Washington will be the high point of a week spent selling Paddywhackery around the world.
Most of us will watch proceedings and feel reassured that America hasn't forgotten us. Most of us will also feel a little bit queasy about the blarney but accept that it's good for business. There's a national confidence deficit and every pat on the head we get is welcome.
That confidence deficit was behind an exceedingly stupid row last week. This concerned the opening of the Leprechaun Museum in Dublin.
Eire Nua was outraged that this symbol of our blarney past has been dredged up. Blarney the Dinosaur was supposed to be extinct.
The leprechaun is "a derogatory symbol," a Tourism Ireland mandarin sniffed.
"Truly the Jedward of museums," one Twitterer wrote. "This is not the Ireland we want to portray abroad," he said. The snobbery was obnoxious.
The culture police needn't have worried about the museum portraying Ireland as Leprechaun Land – there were plenty of other embarrassments to do that.
There was the health service allowing 58,000 X-rays to go unchecked and 3,498 doctors' letters to go unread at Tallaght hospital.
There was disgraced Nationwide boss, Michael Fingleton, demanding an apology for being called names in the Dáil while Nama board members' salaries rose by up to 70% since last December.
There was Noel Dempsey spending €850,000 on a competition to choose an operator for Terminal Two – and then just handing it to the DAA anyway.
Worst of all, there was Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly's damning indictment that "parliament has been sidelined and is no longer able to hold the government to account". We're not living in a democracy any more.
Ireland is Fianna Fáil's Fun Park – also known as 'On the Never-Neverland'. Instead of a Ghost Train we have Ghost Estates. The Roller Coaster has been replaced by the 'Coaster', which is an easy ride for top civil servants. The Big Dipper is run by the bankers who are still putting their hands in our pockets. Mary Harney's on 'The Mary-go-round' (when she gets back from her six-month junket to New Zealand). There's even a Hall of Mirrors so that we can see ourselves as others see us – vaguely comical.
We live in a madhouse and, yet, people are getting upset about a leprechaun museum. A bit of balance is needed.
We've grown sophisticated over the years, but we're not the suave boulevardiers we'd like to think we are. We're much more interesting than that. We are a confusing, contrary, annoying and highly likeable race. We are a low-rise people who used to value the ability to laugh at ourselves. We need to remember that.
Ireland must realise it has a unique brand to sell – its Irishness. The Leprechaun Museum is just another, daft, manifestation of that Irishness.
What was lost amid all the righteous indignation about the museum is that it's a good example of someone using a sustainable resource (Irish folklore) to make money. In 2009, tourism generated €4bn in foreign revenue earnings and €1.2bn in tax. Where there's blarney there's money.
Here's a question: if you have a natural resource that someone wants to buy, do you (A): talk it down or (B): sell it to them?
If the yanks want leprechauns, give them leprechauns. If they want to kiss a rock, charge them. Kissing the Blarney Stone is one of the greatest tourist marketing feats ever dreamed up.
Look at the airport, with its leprechaun hats and suits. Crap sells. Cork firm The Auld Sod Export Company has made millions from selling 1lb bags of Irish soil for $10 to Irish-Americans. Irish muck sells. Riverdance and Enya made hundreds of millions out of the cheesy re-branding of Irish dance and music. Then there's the Oscars, with Granny O'Grimm's Irish take on fairy tales and The Secret of Kells.
Do we really want to culture-up every tourist? Do we expect them all to go to the Abbey? Are we so sophisticated now that we look down on a real opportunity to make some money?
We may not see the value of Brand Ireland, but some foreign companies do. Volvo has decided to finish the 2011-2012 Ocean Race in Galway. This will generate €80m. Why Galway? Because Volvo wants to bring it to "a country that really knows how to celebrate". Ireland is, apparently, a fun place.
If you still believe that the leprechaun museum is ill-conceived, then buy the current edition of Time magazine. There's a 900-word article about its opening. What new Irish businesses are making Time magazine? Remember what that did for U2.
The Yanks have wild west shows, the Brits have the royal pageantry… we have leprechauns. If there's a crock of gold to be made out of a crock of crap – let's make it.
The world knows we're not leprechauns: they hoard their money in pots, we've blown ours.
So embrace your inner leprechaun this week. Remember, without the shamrock in it, the pot that Cowen hands to Obama on Wednesday would be just another begging bowl.

dkenny@tribune.ie