Ireland is going through a vast inflation in the price of land. This has
created a very acute moral dilemma for an Irish friend of mine: “My father
owns 55 acres. This land has been in the Xxxxx family since approx 1780.
They held it through the Penal times, through the famine, through the
economic war of the thirties, and through a lot of other misadventures. If
you have ever seen ‘The Field’ with Richard Harris, you will have some idea
of the Irish peasant’s attitude towards the land. When my Papa inherited it,
it was worth approx ?100 per acre. However, it is five miles outside
Killarney, the tourist trap of all Ireland. One of my father’s neighbours
recieved ?20,000 per acre for his holding recently. My father is 75, and a
drinker and smoker…”