"Irish clans are scattering once more. Emigration, Ireland's traditional response to its economic woes, has resumed and is even accelerating.
"By the 1980s the archytypal emigrant was not just the poor labourer but the frustrated graduate. Then the economic boom of the 'Celtic Tiger' years seemed to break the curse. Young men and women could get well-paid jobs at home. Ireland attracts back home some of the departed, whose skill and networks acquired abroad fuelled the boom. For the first time irelanddrew in many foreign workers, especially from Eastern Europe.
"Radio talk-shows tell bittersweet stories of churches installing webcams so that emigrants (and the elderly at home) can follow services.
"Ireland has a good claim to being a model of adjustment through austerity and structural reform. After suffering a catastrophic banking and property bust * * * t has recovered much of its export competitiveness. * * * The Irish economy has been growing, albeit slowly, in contrast with the shrinking in the troubled periphery of the euro zone.
Note:
(a) Anzola dell'Emilia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzola_dell%27Emilia
(13 km northwest of Bologna)
(b) gelato http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelato
(derived from the Latin word "gelātus." (meaning frozen); containing little or no air; "The ambiguity in use of the word in the United States stems from the fact that there is no standard of identity for gelato set forth by the US Department of Agriculture, as there is for ice cream")
(b) Ali G http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_G
(English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen)
(c) Carpigiani http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpigiani
(located near Bologna; founded by brothers Bruto and Poeri Carlo Carpigiani in 1944; in 1960s was the worldwide leader in the ice cream machinery; Today Carpigiani detains a market quote of 30% of the whole world machinery production)
For Bruto, see
(i) Mickey Mouse universe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_universe
(section 3.8 Ellsworth: "Bruto (original Italian name; he has no English name) is Ellsworth's somewhat smaller adoptive son and Mickey Mouse's sidekick in numerous Italian stories. As of 2009, he has not appeared in American comic books")
(ii) Italian Baby Names: Bruto; About.com, undated http://italian.about.com/library/name/blname_bruto.htm
("Derived from the Latin surname or nickname Brutus 'heavy, slow'")
(iii) Brutus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus
(Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger — Julius Caesar's friend and most famous assassin)
(c) The article says, "Since there are only so many scoops of bacio one nation can eat, exports are now 80% of Carpigiani’s business."
(i) bacio (noun masculine): kiss (The corresponding Italian verb is "baciare.")
(ii) Christopher Brooks, Fresh, Cold and Creamy. New York Times, Aug 8, 2010 (in the column Quick Bite | Danbury) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/nyregion/08qbitect.html
("Il Bacio means 'the kiss' in Italian, and in this long hot summer, there may be no kiss sweeter than a lip-cooling lick of Il Bacio’s house-made ice creams")
(iii) The Portugese surname Nascimento is Portugese noun for "‘birth’, ‘nativity’ (Late Latin nascimentum, from nasci ‘to be born’). This was one of the epithets of the Virgin Mary (Maria do Nascimento), and was also used as a given name for children born at Christmas."
Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.
(iv) Danbury, Connecticut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danbury,_Connecticut
(The city was named for the place of origin of many of the early settlers, Danbury, Essex, in England [the latter Danbury meant "a name meaning "stronghold of the family or followers of a man called Dene"])
(d) Lille http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lille
(The name Lille comes from insula or l'Isla, ie, "the island", since the area was at one time marshy)
(e) The Italian surname Cocchi means son of Cocco (the latter of uncertain derivation).
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(3) Gas in the eastern Mediterranean Drill, or quarrel? Politics could choke supplies from big new offshore gasfields. http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... ds-drill-or-quarrel