We need to count our blessings and be grateful for the things we take for granted every day. Most of Ireland’s citizens live like kings with freedom to worship, a government that’s accountable to them and a host of public services which the most needy never have to pay for. We also need to remember why this is so.

Come out of your foolish fears and preoccupations stoked by baseless conspiracy theories and count your blessings:

• Education- subsidised and free
• Health care-public and private
• Justice & security- Gardai with integrity, courts where justice is served, fair judges
• Fresh flowing water
• Secure food supplies
• Elaborate and effective waste removal and treatment systems
• Elaborate dwelling places with all sorts of facilities such as:
  • Hot showers
  • Electric ovens
  • Central heating
  • Flushable toilets
  • Comfortable furniture and beds
  • TV
  • Computers
  • etc.
• Motor vehicles
• Mobile phones
• Holidays
• Recreational trips
• Parks maintained for our pleasure
• Eating out
• Freedom of worship
• Freedom of assembly
• Freedom of speech (and writing!)
• Accountable government
• Transport systems
• Greenways and tourist attractions, etc.

We also need to remember our history and why we enjoy such freedoms. To say that we owe most if not all of our current wealth, security and freedoms to the United States is not the ravings of a man with some kind of imagined agenda. It is the plain truth to those who have open enough minds to appreciate it.

In the last century the United States were the only reason in the end that we won the first and second world wars. The alternative of losing the second world war would have been fascist rule in Ireland under a demon possessed and lunatic dictator. Also in the last century the US pursued a series of wars and political and financial campaigns against the USSR and its allies (unpopular with many at the time) which held back the spread of another fascist regime. Many Eastern Europeans are old enough to remember what life was like under communist rule. It would be worth your while talking to them. Believe me you didn’t want to live under that system (maybe watch the Sky series Chernobyl if you need reminding).

And why do we owe so much to the USA? It is because fundamentally it is founded on Christian principles. The biblical basis of the US constitution, culture and philosophy is undeniable. It was written by people who (whether they or their ancestors) had paid a high price for their religious freedom escaping persecution from anti-Christ organised religion in Europe. Obviously they weren’t perfect in their implementation of it, and are still not, but if it wasn’t for the land of the free we wouldn’t be.

We have a bad habit in this land of knocking everyone and in particular the US. There is no doubt that there are some individuals (some in high places) that are an embarrassment to that nation and what it stands for. But we would do well to remember here in our national pride just how small and insignificant a nation we are and how much we are at the mercy of much larger powers. We don’t even bother to maintain an effective deterrent army to protect ourselves, such is our trust in the US and its allies in NATO.

Our lifestyles, culture and freedom were made secure with US (and British) lives which, even publicly, we have only just begun to acknowledge. When they won the war they didn’t come in to our country to take over, strip our assets and send them back to the mother country like the USSR did in Eastern Europe. Instead they supplied industry, jobs and supported our freedoms.

And the main reason they did this was because their nation was, and is, fundamentally Christian.