WHEN IT COMES to choosing a headline for Surrealing in the Years, some weeks pose more of a challenge than others.

This is especially true when some other publication has beaten me to the punch. After all, how better to summarise the events of the past week than the Daily Mail’s thoughtful and considered headline: ‘Four biblical signs the world has entered the end of days as US bombs Iran’.

I haven’t read that article, because I try to avoid needlessly poisoning my brain whenever I can, but one assumes the apocalyptic signs they’re pointing to include the Saharan dust cloud coming our way, or the blood moon that appeared overhead, or the tearing down of a pint-wielding St Patrick statue in Temple Bar as though it were Saddam Hussein. 

Yes, in fairness to the Daily Mail, things have begun to feel a little more apocalyptic than usual. Indeed, at the end of January, the Doomsday Clock people moved the hands on the clock so that it’s 85 seconds to midnight — the closest the clock has ever been to midnight, with midnight symbolising the end of the world. There’s probably an argument to be made that we don’t need to be bossed around by some pushy, nagging clock, and also that a clock is not a good visual representation of a variable that fluctuates in a non-linear way, very much unlike the hands on a clock, but whatever. The situation is bad, and we all know it. 

Perhaps the most horrifying act to emerge amidst the expansion of Israel and the United States’ trail of destruction in the Middle East is the targeting of an Iranian girls’ school in Minab. As of Friday, Reuters was reporting that the US was behind the massacre, which left more than 160 people, many of whom were children, dead. 

For all the panic that tends to ensue in the Western world over ‘World War 3′ in moments such as these, it is important to remember that the steepest price by far is always paid by those on the ground where the bombs are falling. 

Given the devastation faced by people in the Middle East at the hands of the US-Israel alliance, it seems almost trivial even to note that the conflict has knock-on effects here in Ireland. Nevertheless, we have already seen opportunistic price increases to things like petrol and heating oil, even though Ireland is not facing a supply shortage. 

It’s easy to mock those living in relative safety for worrying about what the war will mean for the price of such things, but these are not trivial concerns. Whether it’s school runs, driving to hospital appointments, getting themselves to work, keeping their homes warm amid -2 degree temperatures, many people across Ireland are not equipped to take such cruel price hikes on the chin. 

In some cases, the price of petrol has gone up by between 5c and 10c per litre. Now, I don’t drive, but that does sound like it might be a lot. I have a provisional licence, but I haven’t started lessons yet. It’s because I’m scared. Are you happy now?

Look, I’m learning to drive, okay? Lay off me. No, I haven’t booked the lessons yet, but I have vouchers for two lessons. I’m going to book the lessons for some time in the next month, so just get off my back, man. Sure, maybe I had to Google how many litres are in a “full tank” of petrol in order to fully understand what kind of increase we’re talking about here, but it’s not my wheelhouse, okay?

And I’m going to be learning on an automatic, which will be easier, so it’s probably not going to take that long for me to learn. It’ll just be like driving a bumper car, right? It’s only two pedals and no gearstick, do you know what I mean? It can’t possibly be that hard. I am so scared of learning how to drive, man. And anyway, there’s a war in the Middle East, we’ve got more important things to worry about besides whether or not I can drive.  

Regardless of my own deficiencies, these price hikes will remind readers of the soaring energy prices experienced in the first year of the Russia-Ukraine war, which prompted the government to intervene and issue energy credits. The Irish government has adopted a much stronger stance of non-intervention in the past year, and so far has only called for the CCPC to investigate possible instances of price gouging.

It is the same approach that has been taken to another major story of the past week — the 36 eviction notices suddenly served to residents of Bridgetown, Co Wexford by landlord company Patchflow.

Ring doorbell footage from the neighbourhood shows a representative for the company telling residents that the notices were being served on foot of the Residential Tenancies Act passed by the government last week. To be fair, the representative also seems to acknowledge that this could change as a result of ‘radio shows and political debate’ — a nice acknowledgement that the decision might be reversed if we all collectively decide it’s a bit too Dickensian. 

As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened. Patchflow was obviously visited overnight by the three ghosts of Everyone Finds Your Behaviour Despicable, had a change of heart and withdrew the eviction notices on Friday evening.

“It does seem to be a very peculiar situation,” was Simon Harris’ verdict on the matter before the notices were withdrawn, which, in fairness to him, is very funny. Like the kind of thing that Dr Seuss would say if 36 of the Whos got evicted from Whoville. How kooky! How anomalous! How downright perplexing!

What seemed to be missing from the conversation is whether the eviction notices were issued under the government’s new rules or the government’s old rules; it is the government that makes the rules. If there was suspicion that the eviction notices were issued in contravention of those rules, then the government should have treated it as a matter of urgency, since this was not a normal state of affairs but a ‘peculiar’ one, as the Tánaiste himself acknowledged.

We might not expect the government to weigh in on every standalone eviction, but any society where almost an entire estate’s worth of houses can be told they’re being turfed out on totally unclear grounds — grounds so unclear that the notices were withdrawn within days — is not a society with a functioning rental market. One imagines the queasy uncertainty will take some time to abate for the renters affected, though what a relief it is to us all that the government avoided getting its hands dirty. 

But then, Micheál Martin is a busy man. It’s only a matter of days now until the Taoiseach must return to Washington DC to— wait, what is the official reason that we’re still doing this visit? Is there still some grotesque, hollow overture towards a special relationship with the United States or is it more explicitly about hoping that they don’t take out our entire Cabinet in one airstrike due to some kind of AI-driven alphabetisation mix-up at the Pentagon?

Either way, someone sneak him a copy of a Michael Moore book or put American Idiot by Green Day on his headphones while he sleeps on the plane. Who knows? Maybe Micheál Martin will stand up in the Oval Office and call out Trump for the murderous, war-mongering, paedophile-protecting autocrat that he is. You know, show a bit of backbone. Then we’ll really know it’s the end of days.

© TheJournal