It's economics and successive bad governments that are responsible for the social phenomena you describe, not lack of faith. Japan is still quite socially conservative, traditional and gendered and in case you have noticed, it's not a catholic nation. Conservatism does not require Catholicism or indeed any form of Christianity to flourish.
I'm not going to throw shit at young people for staying at home longer than my generation (or yours) because they inherited a world in which owing property, and creating and maintaining a family is exponentially more difficult and requires, comparably, significantly more resources. They must also assume far more risk due to different sociological and legal conditions which make cohabitating and marriage far less appealing.
If it was your company, you were obviously the director, and unless you had a board, you shouldn't have needed to convince the leadership of anything. I don't smoke, don't do drugs (anymore) and only drink socially. You've literally spent upwards of 40% of your time on Sarsfields arguing with James about everything. A stone thrown in a glass house, Tiger. If you must know, I'm currently overseeing a macro-scale ecological restoration project. The budget is quite large, and it is extremely complicated. Nationalism, to me, includes not just people but the soil, plants and animals also.
I'm not especially interested in what you think does and does not make a good nationalist. Your version of Catholic nationalism has no future and will never be implemented at any meaningful level whatsoever, because it is outdated and has no consensus. Nor will it ever have any. Ditto Brocht's bullshit. It's all just snow on the edge of spring. The best either of you can hope for is to make the evening news, in which you will predictably be derided and written-off as antiquated, mean-spirited, stale Mick farts. Which of course you both are. The archdioceses will likely release a public statement denouncing both of you, the movement, and you will then have to live with the embarrassment of having been betrayed by the very institution you've spent your lives defending and advocating for.
Rolf, you, as a distant foreigner, you haven’t a clue what has lead to the social phenomenon that I have talked about. Also, let’s address the casual slur, “stale Mick farts”. Not only does this betray a deep disdain for Irish people, but it shows you’ve got no business involving yourself in any conversation about Irish nationalism (showing that I'm correct in thinking that you are bit of cunt). You don’t just sound out of touch—you sound like someone who actively despises the country you claim to care about. A nationalist? Hardly. You’re just another wannabe pseudo nationalist sneering down your nose at the people whose culture you neither respect nor understand. The last thing Ireland needs is your ideals or your involvement.
Your fixation on economics as the sole cause of Ireland’s social collapse is a lazy excuse to dodge the real issue: moral and cultural decay. Yes, Japan is conservative and socially cohesive, but that’s because they’ve held on to their traditions and sense of national identity—unlike modern Ireland, which has gutted itself by trading Catholic values for secular hedonism and consumerism. You’ve never set foot Ireland, what the fuck do you know. You can’t even compare the two. Ireland’s problem isn’t a lack of money; it’s a lack of soul. And that, my friend, is on the shoulders of people like you who peddle a Godless worldview while pretending that economics alone can fix what’s broken.
Your argument about young Irish adults staying at home and avoiding families reeks of condescension. It’s not housing prices alone that keep them from growing up; it’s the fact that the modern atheist mindset has sold them a lie. They’ve been told that personal pleasure is paramount, that family is a burden, and that commitment is optional. This has led to a nation of perpetual adolescents, obsessed with escapism and unwilling to embrace adulthood. You’re defending a system that’s robbed an entire generation of direction and purpose. Congratulations on playing your part in creating it.
Meanwhile, I’m out here doing something. I’m part of a group of businesspeople, military leaders, doctors, scientists and others who work behind the scenes (meeting several times a year in hotels around the country for the past 11 years) to build practical solutions for Ireland’s problems. One of our projects is creating a public banking system to free Irish people from the predatory clutches of global financial institutions—something Germany already does successfully, and we are trying to mimic despite the states objections. Another focus has been supporting young women in crisis pregnancies, giving them real alternatives to abortion. Thanks to those efforts, there are children alive today—playing GAA, enjoying Christmas, and bringing joy to their communities—who would otherwise have been dismembered and sold for parts by the monstrous international abortion industry, something that you support based on the canard of pregnancies being the result of 'gang rapes'.
What’s your contribution to Aussie nationalism? Oh, right—some vague ecological project. Important work, no doubt (I have an island in Clew bay that I plant trees on) does that make me special? No. So, forgive me if I’m unimpressed by someone who plants trees while their nation is being culturally annihilated.
You mock me for arguing with James, but at least I’m standing up for something. Meanwhile, you spend your days typing pseudointellectual screeds and smugly patting yourself on the back. Nationalism, you say, includes “soil, plants, and animals.” Admirable sentiment, but what about the people? Or do you see them as expendable?
And let’s not pretend you’re offering anything new. People like you are ten a penny in Ireland: smug, nihilistic, and utterly useless. You mock Catholic nationalism as outdated, but secular nationalism in Ireland has achieved nothing. Show me one victory, one leader, one movement that has advanced your cause. You can’t. Because all the so-called secular nationalists are busy arguing on 4chan or obsessing over online debates. Meanwhile, the last Irish nationalist to capture the public imagination and make a real impact was Declan Ganley—a practicing Catholic who single-handedly defeated the Lisbon Treaty and the entire Irish political establishment. Where’s your secular equivalent? Nowhere. Because atheists make terrible nationalists, and your lot has yet to prove otherwise.
You try to paint Catholic nationalism as outdated, but the truth is, you’ve got no vision, no victories, and no plan. Just empty rhetoric and a lot of excuses. You mock the Church, yet it’s the only institution that ever gave Ireland its moral backbone. Without it, we’re left with your version of “nationalism,” which is nothing but intellectual masturbation dressed up as policy. Go ahead, plant your trees, but don’t pretend you’re building a future for Ireland. The only thing you’re growing is irrelevance.