Who was the divil who sold all our silver bullets?

Date Published: {J}

Finally we appear to have arrived at the root cause of our financial crisis - somebody sold our silver bullet.

Because for the last few weeks, everyone from Michael Noonan to the Governor of the Central Bank has been forced to admit that there is no silver bullet.

There's a rich irony somewhere that a country once riddled with bullets - literally and metaphorically - is now going down the toilet for the want of one of them, albeit a bullet made of silver.

If only rubber bullets might get us out of this mess, we could ask the British Army if they've any left over after pulling out of the North.But rubber won't do; and while the rest of the world deals in gold, we're preoccupied with silver.

Even if we had a silver bullet, it's hard to see how it would improve things when we're up to our neck in hock.

In folklore, the silver bullet is supposed to be the only kind of bullet for firearms that is effective against a werewolf, witch, or other monsters. Sometimes (not always) the silver bullet is also inscribed with Christian religious symbolism, such as a cross or the initials "J.M.J" (Jesus, Mary & Joseph) - which is precisely what we all say every time an economic 'analyst' opens his gob.

In political or economic-speak of course, the "silver bullet" is a metaphor for any straightforward solution perceived to have extreme effectiveness.

But are our experts confusing a "silver bullet" with a "magic bullet," the popular term for Dr. Paul Ehrlich's newly-discovered cure for syphilis in the early 20th century. The medical breakthrough was the subject of the 1940 film, Dr Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, and prompted the metaphorical use of "magic bullet" as a powerful cure for a pressing societal problem.

It's not implying that, in addition to our economic woes, we're riddled with an STD.

But none of this explains why our leaders have suddenly become so preoccupied with finding our missing bullet.

Is it stuck down the back of the couch with the deeds for our negative equity homes, our dreams and the hopes of our children?

Did Bertie stick it in the safe in Drumcondra with his wad of wages when he didn't have a bank account - and then forget where he put it?Did Brian Cowen drop it in the bar at the Ardilaun before he became all choked up and throaty after a rousing version of the Lakes of Ponchartrain?

Or did the Little General himself, deadeye Willie O'Dea, let one off in that famous photo shoot on the rifle range - not realising at the time that it was our last one?

Because now, for the want of a silver bullet, we can't help mortgage holders, even though we bent over backwards for the banks.

We can't look after the education of our most vulnerable children, because we had to pay pensions to retiring politicians and bankers.All over the country we have stalls that will value your gold for you and give you a fee bob for your jewellery in order to pay the increase in electricity prices, when all along we were putting our store in the wrong precious metal.

We should have been fashioning our silver into bullets all along – and maybe used them to burst the property bubble before it finally enveloped us all.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.