Ireland: What did we do to deserve these plagues?

Pat FitzpatrickThe Irish Independent

“Is God punishing us?” asked Pat Fitzpatrick. “The trials of the Irish people are taking on biblical proportions,” like the 10 plagues.

We’ve got pestilence, in the form of the swine flu that has sickened thousands. We’ve got floods, after the Shannon River burst its banks and put half of Limerick underwater. There’s even a “plague of frogs”—“all those French people heading to the World Cup finals” after a bad call gave France an undeserved soccer victory over Ireland. And these horrors are occurring against a backdrop of recession. Company after company is going bankrupt—the latest being Budget Travel, which closed its doors last week, stranding hundreds of passengers overseas.

“What have we done to deserve this?” We all know we must have done something to anger the Lord. This country, after all, was “built on a foundation of Catholic guilt.” Surely one of us can come forward and confess the sin that brought down all this wrath upon us. “We’d better find the correct answer soon, though—we can’t take much more of this.”