"Money smoothly replaced a worship built on lies and violence. . ."

"If any people should have known better than to trust the shallow promises of easy money, wasn’t it the Irish? A mood of grim introspection has settled upon the people themselves now. Underneath the sheen of prosperity, wasn’t a corrupting decadence lurking? All along, weren’t there warnings of the coming heartbreak? What’s the point in being Irish if you forgot that?"