We look longingly at the US and even the most world-wise of us longs for an 'Obama Moment'. A moment when it seems possible that things could be different. That the future could unroll to a different script. Maybe not as melodramatic and ecstatic. But a moment when it might be that we too could.

This is a Republic, bequeathed to us not just out of the blood, sweat and tears of those great, honoured names, but out of the hard, painstaking work of generations of anonymous ancestors whose names are not listed in annals.

Each one of us, in the privacy, sanctity and dignity of our own specific individual identity is a stakeholder and a shareholder. And each one of us, as a citizen, is not powerless. We can. We can take back our Republic. We can rewrite the future. We can – together – remould a common destiny. And not least secure simple daily survival through the hurricane of history. Begin the fight back to recovery.

Specifically, we must begin, each one of us, by taking our individual action to remove, gently and courteously, a government which has failed us. Which will go on to fail us – again and again. Which cannot fulfil the promise of the 1916 Proclamation to cherish the children of the nation – and indeed, the nation itself.

We are not powerless. We must ask each of our local TDs who currently supports the Cowen government to stop doing so. To vote them out. Right now. And we can ask Dáil Éireann to give us a new government. Right now. Without a general election. So that we too, in Ireland, can have our Obama moment. And begin anew.

Maurice O'Connell,

Fenit Without, Fenit,

Tralee, Co Kerry