A piece of cake

After writing on the world pecan shortage, I feel more than qualified to suggest how the Irish debt crisis might be attacked. Now I grant you that paying off the EU and IMF the more than $100 billion they are putting into Ireland is a tall order. But heck, we’ve got to start somewhere. My theory is that raising the first five billion or so should be a piece of cake. And getting that done will embolden the Irish government to keep the jackals at bay.

So how do we start? The first thing to consider is the vast number of people outside Ireland who claim Irish ancestry and remind everyone of it constantly. In fact, they comprise about 13 per cent of the Canada/U.S. population, or 46 million people. And based on recent statistics, about a million of them are millionaires or multimillionaires.

So there’s a huge target market for a tug-at-the-heartstrings campaign. We could draw on the 30 per cent of Australians and 15 per cent of New Zealanders who also claim Irish ancestry, but let’s leave them out because they’re in a different time zone, postage is expensive and they’re mostly descended from convicts anyway.

Our campaign needs to have one overarching theme. How about “I’ll never tire of Ireland,” which denotes both intense loyalty and the strong hint that there is plenty for the disaffiliated to tire of?

Then the campaign needs multiple donation thresholds, especially to attract our millionaires group. For instance, you could seek “Leadership” donors, who at a minimum price of $1 million or more would become the permanent sponsor of one of the 163 members of the Irish Parliament. The parliamentarian would all day, every day, wear the donor’s name attached to the back of his or her suit or dress (hey, they do this in soccer already). So there’s $163 million for you, and we’re just getting started.

Then you could seek out a thousand “Heritage Guardian” donors, who for a gift of $250,000 or more would receive a certified chunk of the Blarney Stone. While the Stone would no doubt have to be replaced by a replica, look how well this idea worked for the Berlin Wall. Chalk up an easy $250 million.

Moving down, you could offer donors of $100,000 or more “Ancestral” recognition in the form of a road sign naming one kilometre of road as they wished, whether it be “Liam O’Leary Road” or “Ethel Schwartz Boulevard.” There are 2,683 km of roads in Ireland. So there’s another $268 million for you.

Let’s move lower and target the larger spectrum of those 40 million people. Why not offer a “Compatriot” level contributor of $10,000 or more a framed package comprising a bottle of Bushmill’s, a shamrock and a hand signed letter of thanks from the Prime Minister; and aim for 250,000 donors. Or at the “Republican” level of $2,500 or more, provide a certificate, a bottle of Guinness and a square foot of genuine Irish peat, shooting for 500,000 donors. And perhaps you could count on a million donors at the “Leprechaun” level of $1,000, by offering a shillelagh and a copy of every record the Chieftains have ever made. Add everything so far together and you’ve got almost $5.5 billion – and that’s just from those with a constant Irish affinity.

Raising funds on top of that will be a bit of crapshoot. What you have going for you is everyone’s willingness to pretend they’re Irish one day a year, and mass loyalty to an often slender Irish heritage. So here are some ideas:

– impose a St. Patrick’s Day tax on green beer, and the use of expressions as “faith and begorrah,” “top of the mornin’ to ya” and “ah, the luck of the Irish.”

– Sponsor Bono to see how long he can contain himself before acting as though he alone can save the world, or better still….

– Sponsor U2 to refrain from recording music. – Impose a performance levy on Irish songs having to do with deportation, washerwomen, fishmongers, misery or the cruel hanging of Irish patriots who were merely knocking off British soldiers. – Have Irish Spring soap sponsor an “Oye Lake et Toe” contest for worst adopted Irish accent. – Offer a limit number of official “green shamrock” licensed products. After all, it worked with pink ribbons.

Yes, with the adoption of just a few of those ideas, Ireland should make a significant dent in its debt load and master its own destiny. My sympathy goes out to the smaller fry. What does Portugal have to work with but squid, Christiano Ronaldo and cheap holidays? And Belgium—frites and Hercule Poirot? Some situations defy any imaginative solution.

David Simmonds’s writing is also available online at grubstreet.ca.