PBS Wide Angle: 'Mixed Blessings'

Co-producer Erin Chapman was online Wednesday, July 19, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the PBS Wide Angle film, "Mixed Blessings," about the transformation of Ireland from poor and rural to modern and urban. Wide Angle visited the city of Limerick, once notoriously violent, that is now the scene of foreign investment and booming industry. But with the changes have come the challenges of transformation and growth.

PBS Wide Angle's "Mixed Blessings" airs Tuesday, July 18, at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings).

The transcript follows.

Co-producer Erin Chapman joined Thirteen/WNET New York in 2000 and is currently a coordinating producer for the award-winning foreign affairs series, Wide Angle. With the strand since its launch in 2002, she has covered topics as diverse as the Colombian cocaine trade, the election of Pope Benedict XVI, and an Emmy-winning look at women rebuilding post-genocide Rwanda.

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Erin Chapman: Hi Everyone,

I'd like to welcome you to The Washington Post's Web chat on the Wide Angle program, "Mixed Blessings" that aired last evening on PBS. While you're online, please check out our Web site at www.pbs.org/wideangle. The site includes the full transcript of our interview with Irishman Peter Sutherland (BP Chairman & UN Special Representative on Migration & Development) as well as expanded context for the film. Looking forward to your thoughts!

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Fairfax, Va.: My family traces its roots to Ireland with Mom born there and coming here as an infant and my father's grandfather following a more traditional immigrant route as a young man. With everything I have heard of Ireland's often troubled history, it has been wonderful to hear that the country is enjoying what appears to be a major economic boom. Are there really problems to give rise to calling it "mixed blessings" or is it the development problems we often face here in the U.S. and certainly here in the DC suburbs?

Erin Chapman: From my experience, I think the Irish would generally agree with you that their economic/cultural growing pains are no more severe than any other country's in the developed West. That being said, lifestyles have changed dramatically and I think some people lament the loss of family time and the slower pace of pre-boom life.

There are also problems like increased personal debt - the average Irish taxpayer now owes more than his annual after-tax income - and skyrocketing property prices. I was stunned by how much a modest house sells for in the Dublin area. And I thought New York real estate was bad!

The boom in consumer spending has shepherded increases in alcohol consumption, drug use and even overeating. I read in the Irish Times last month that Dublin was opening its first fat camp for teenagers. I'm sure the Irish who left during the potato famine would have found that unbelievable.

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Annapolis, Md.: I missed the show last night. Is it going to be rebroadcast or is there anyway to get a copy of it?

Erin Chapman: Check with your local PBS station. Very often, the program will be re-broadcast at another date/time. We will also be streaming the entire documentary online at our Web site - www.pbs.org/wideangle. It should be available by tomorrow morning.

If you are an educator who would like to use the program in your classroom, you can visit the FAQ section of our Web site and link to our educational distributor, Films Media Group.

At the current time, the program is not available on home video, but please check our Web site periodically for any updates.

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Norman, Okla.: What has happened to the church that was sold since the program was produced? Do they still have a problem with violence?

Erin Chapman: The Sacred Heart's last mass, which closed the film, was on June 30th. Yesterday, the day of the premiere, the contents of the church - furniture, paintings, etc. - were auctioned off. The sacred objects were given to other churches in Limerick.

John O'Dolan has still not announced a final end use for the church.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Erin,

Thank you for taking my question. I did not see the film yet, but hope to, it sounds very interesting. I am particularly interested, because as a part of a 2 month trip to Europe last summer I spent 4 days hiking in the Burren, in County Clare. The towns that I hiked through - LaHinch, Doolin, Fanore, Ballyvaghan - all still seemed quite rural and traditional? I suppose, perhaps, it was just that I got the "tourist sampling" of a region of the country that caters to tourist's expectations? I also spent 4 days in Dublin, and a few hours in Galway waiting for the bus - which both were obviously urban - but didn't seem any more urbanized than all the other cities I visited in Europe.

Erin Chapman: I hope you'll get a chance to see the film. Indeed, there are still many areas of the country that live up to the tourist board images. Small farmers are finding it increasingly hard to get by, however, and their land is becoming more valuable as real estate than as pasture or tillage.

You may not have noticed while hiking, but the country's road system is rapidly expanding and people are increasingly commuting into the city's. Rather than an national urbanization, I saw more sub-urbanization - lots of McMansion style developments popping up in the countryside.

I'd agree that Dublin and Galway are now similar in scale to many European cities, but that's a huge change! Dublin has grown phenomenally in the past 10-20 years (in population as well as wealth). In early research for the program, I met with Dublin's city architect and city planner and both mentioned that city officials took many trips to the Continent to see how other European cities had developed and what lessons they could take back to Ireland. It's been a rapid process and the nation is trying to make sure its infrastructure can keep up.

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McLean, Va.: We watched the program and did not get any sense of the "notoriously violent" past. We visited Limerick in 1985 and 2006 and neither saw nor heard about anything like that then or now. Where does that claim come from and why was it used as a tickler for the program?

Erin Chapman: Limerick's City Council would appreciate your comments! Certainly, it's a very safe place to visit and I personally found it to be a vibrant city. However, Limerick has traditionally had one of the highest crime rates in Ireland. It's long been burdened with the nickname "Stab City," following a series of high-profile gang feuds. While crime rates have fallen dramatically, the Irish Examiner reported that a third of gun crimes in Ireland last year took place in Limerick.

The citizens are quite touchy about this image, as you can imagine. One of the gentlemen in the film, John Leonard, is part of a campaign to change the nickname to "Fab City."

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Vienna, Va.: How, if at all, might the growth of the Republic's economic power affect the conflict in Northern Ireland? It seems the north has always been wealthier per capita in the past--can a stronger economic power to the south have greater influence on the political process of the north?

Erin Chapman: This is a fantastic question. We thought it was such an interesting topic, that we designed an entire web feature around it for our site (www.pbs.org/wideangle/shows/Ireland/handbook.html).

A short answer - Yes, I think economic integration definitely shows promise for accomplishing what decades of political maneuvering have so far failed to achieve. Money talks.

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Bellingham, Wash.: Good morning, it has been my contention the Irish would rule the world were it not for the one-two punch of alcohol and Catholicism. You raised the specter of the effects of a changing Catholicism, but is the Celtic Tiger consuming less alcohol now than at earlier times? Thank you.

Erin Chapman: No - despite the stereotype of the pub-frequenting Irishman, alcoholism was not nearly the problem 20 years ago that it is today. More disposable income means more money to spend on an evening out. Binge drinking has been on the rise.

When I was there, many alcohol companies - including Diageo, the new parent company of Guinness - were engaged in massive anti-drunk driving campaigns. Stringent DUI laws are coming into place and there's been a real crack down lately.

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Dayton, Ohio: Why did you pick Limerick instead of Dublin, Cork or Galway?

Erin Chapman: Thanks for your question. Indeed, when I went over for my first scouting trip, I visited several areas and met people from all over the country. Dublin is certainly a happening city with lots of foreign investors and a huge property boom. However, as you may know if you've ever visited Ireland, Dublin is a beast unto itself! We thought it best to focus beyond the Pale and visit a city that might better represent the changes that are occurring throughout the country.

Limerick was a good place to be because it exemplified so many of the trends sweeping Ireland. The Sacred Heart church was going on the auction block; Intel, Dell and several other foreign companies are headquartered there; there are quite rural areas very close to the city that are rapidly suburbanizing, etc., etc.

Funnily enough, after we'd decided to base the film in Limerick, we read that Guinness considered it to be the most demographically representative city in Ireland and was testing out their latest brew in city pubs.

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Washington, D.C.: I'm a first generation Irish-American. My mother is from Leitrim which is an agri-industrial area mainly left out of the travel guides, so it's been mostly spared from the Celtic Boom. But not for long, Lonford is a mess of rowhouse cul-de-sacs and shopping plazas, gas stations and car dealerships. And now there's most definitely diabetes, obesity and the anti-depressants in my family now.

I admit to a sentimentalism about Irish quaintness and undevelopment, but the country's gone on a greedy mad building binge. The house prices in Ireland are unbelievable. Similar to the U.S., parents are selling off a bit of the auld sod to developers and giving $ and houses to their adult children, many who are unmarried parents themselves. And like my young cousins, the young Irish now go to Thailand for tattoos, rave in Portugal or Spain, and rent a villa in Croatia with friends.

It's sad to me - really sad - because my Irishness gave me the gift to not be so impressed with material things or believe anyone was better for having money.

Erin Chapman: I think a lot of the Irish have similar feelings. They're thrilled with the economic prosperity, but trying to contend with the flip-side of the wealth.

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Toledo, Ohio -- don't hold it against me!: Thanks for doing this chat. Unfortunately, I missed last night's program -- the TV is boxed up for my coming move. However, I traveled to Ireland three times between 1995 and 2004. The difference in that time was astonishing! In the mid 90s, the Irish people I saw were mostly white, mostly thin, and just beginning to form the spine of the Celtic Tiger. Two years ago, Ireland had morphed into a multi-cultural and affluent nation -- I stayed in Cork and Limerick and couldn't get over the number of Asian and African immigrants there. It was like I had visited two completely different countries, Before and After.

Is it your sense that the native Irish are asking what it means to be Irish, now that others are moving in? What about racism? I know Germany, England, France, and other European countries have struggled with those issues as their populations changed with the influx of new people.

Erin Chapman: Hope you can catch the program online. The recent influx of immigrants into Ireland has certainly been a change. Most people I met felt like the Irish owed it to the world to accept these migrants in their country. For so long, the Irish Diaspora relied upon foreign shores for jobs and new opportunities, that many feel an obligation to welcome a reversal of the historic trend. While there have undeniably been some racist incidents, I never sensed anything like the level of hostility present in some other European countries.

That being said, I think part of the reason the Irish are so welcoming is that they NEED these immigrants to sustain their growth. When situations arise wherein the Irish feel their own jobs will be threatened, the tables may turn. In December, there was a hint of this when thousands took to the streets to protest the Irish Ferries decision to lay off Irish workers and replace them with lower-wage Eastern Europeans.

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Munich, Germany: How is the influx of wealth and prosperity affecting the Irish language?

Twenty years ago while hitchhiking through southern and western Ireland, one of my rides told me that he had traveled to the western islands in order to practice his Irish, but every time he spoke a phrase in Irish, the locals would laugh, tell him to wait there a moment, bring others to listen to him, and then tell him to say the phrase again. Then, the whole bar would laugh uproariously at his Irish. The locals in the pub then slapped him on the back and bought him a few beers, but my driver told me that he wasn't too motivated to speak Irish after that.

Do you think that the government policy of requiring government workers to speak Irish is contributing to the longevity of the language?

Erin Chapman: Thanks for your question. While the Irish language seemed to be on the decline for many years, I think the new flood of wealth has actually jump-started a new interest in Gaelic. Irish names are becoming much more popular for babies and it's now fashionable for young parents to send their children to Irish schools or gaelscoileanna.

That being said, I don't think you'll hear Irish widely-spoken anytime soon. A cab driver I had in Dublin told me that there were now more Mandarin Chinese speakers in Ireland than Gaelic speakers. Not sure where he got his stats, but I wouldn't be surprised!

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Pauline, S.C.: Hi, loved your beautifully filmed positive program last night. We are reading Frank McCourt's Teacher Man online on SeniorNet.org and he speaks several times of being a "Limerickman." You refer to him at the beginning of the program, would you say all of the slums in Limerick are now gone? And if nobody has asked yet, what happened to the Sacred Heart Church after it was sold? Beautiful presentation!

Erin Chapman: Glad you enjoyed the show. There are certainly still poor areas of Limerick, but the former site of McCourt's tenement is now a shopping plaza! Times have certainly changed.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the fate of the church is still hanging in the balance. Our last day of shooting was June 30th - the Sacred Heart's last mass - and I haven't heard any updates since then.

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New York, N.Y.: Hi Erin, I got married in Ireland last October in the wilds of Mayo, some of the most gorgeous land in the world. My wife and I go to Ireland at least twice a year and the thing that strikes me most is how young the population appears. Everywhere people in their 20s and 30s. My dad tells me that prior to the boom the country was almost void of young men, forced to go abroad to find work. Is this true and does this play a part in why the roads all seem to be under construction (expansion), the land is becoming so valuable (and unavailable) and the pace of the island is more frenetic?

Erin Chapman: Ireland is definitely one of the most beautiful countries I've ever visited, so I have to agree with your comment. Absolutely demographics have played a role in the economic boom. Irish economist David McWilliams recently published a book called, "The Pope's Children" about the very generation you mention. These young men and women grew up with the benefits of Ireland's investment in education and now have many more opportunities within their home country than their parents or grandparents. We have an excerpt from the book on our web site - www.pbs.org/wideangle - and I'd encourage you to check it out.

With the population on the rise, Ireland is trying to expand its infrastructure (new roads, public transportation, etc.) to keep up with the frenetic growth. It's becoming much more difficult for young families to purchase a home and accordingly, apartment buildings are now popping up all over the place.

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Washington, D.C.: I missed the show last night, but am glad to know that it may get rebroadcast. Having traveled in Ireland a little over a year ago, I noticed some of the changes. One that struck me was a fellow American (of Irish descent) had moved to Ireland to open his own Ice Cream shop (in Dingle). He and I spoke about what he saw as a possibly riskier, but greater opportunity for him by moving to Ireland than in staying in San Francisco. Did you run into much of that, while filming and researching your piece?

Erin Chapman: I certainly ran into a lot of Irish who thought they might make a better life for themselves in Ireland than abroad. I also met quite a few returnees, who came home to try and grab their piece of the economic success.

Self-made entrepreneurs are on the rise and I met lots of business owners who assured me they were making much better salaries in Ireland than they possibly could in the States.

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Erin Chapman: Thank you all so much for your interesting and enlightening questions. It's been a pleasure! I hope you'll tune in to next week's Wide Angle - "Class of 2006" - which follows some of Morocco's newly ordained female imams.

Cead mille failte!

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