I've been wandering around Spain, eating, drinking and, best of all, relaxing. It was an enjoyable fortnight, despite being sandwiched between two Ryanair flights. The second of these was from Seville. Seville is a magnificent city, although it has one major flaw: its inhabitants are pig-ignorant. Plates were flung at us, we were sneered at, bumped into: the Sevillians hate tourists. Just thinking about the combination of Ryanair and Seville is getting me stressed again.

Here's how the journey home went. First up, we have paid for priority boarding. At Seville airport we see a long queue without a priority boarding sign. Stress levels rise slightly until we learn that this is just the police security queue.

Once past this, we queue again in another room. Still no priority boarding sign. Just Sevillians elbowing us out of the way. Stress.

Forty minutes later, Ryanair staff appear and we scramble through to the next stage – another queue on a ramp in 40 degrees heat. STRESSSSSSS.

After waiting 10 minutes, we are led across the tarmac… to queue again. Stresssss, as we wait for a Sevillian to race past shouting "Up yours, assholes!"

Finally, we board the plane to be told that if we're not airborne in five minutes we'll have to wait another four hours. Stress turns to panic. Passengers clamber over each other. Small children are rammed into the overhead storage. There is a strange grinding sound.

Ten minutes later we are airborne, trying to ignore the relentless sales pitches for charity lottery tickets. "Remember, there are people less fortunate than we are," twitters the stewardess. I realise then that the grinding sound is coming from my teeth.

Stress. Bowel-gripping, teeth-grinding, murderous stress. Michael O'Leary, we are never going to fly with Ryanair again.

Once back at Dublin airport, the stress melts away. The immigration garda says "Welcome home". A staff member rushes over to get Mrs K a trolley. For all our flaws, the Irish are a nice race of people. I start to relax.

The warm feeling doesn't last. Outside arrivals we discover that the Patton Flyer bus to Dalkey is no longer running. It's ceased services after losing a four-year licence battle with the Department of Transport. Trevor Patton had built up a fine business, proving the route was viable. Aircoach now operates it.

Whatever about the bureaucratic rules, it seems unfair that a local business should fold up to make way for a multinational. Where's the natural justice in that?

As I reluctantly catch up on the news, I find plenty of other examples of natural justice being ignored. Creditors of an insolvent taxi firm owned by rogue financier Breifne O'Brien are unlikely to receive any money. I'd forgotten about O'Brien. It's two years since his alleged pyramid scheme came to light. The fraud squad is still looking into it. His creditors are out of pocket and he has yet to answer serious charges. Natural justice?

Elsewhere, I read about how Anglo's shenanigans are continuing to screw us over and yet Seánie Fitz is still enjoying rounds of golf. Meanwhile, a woman tells Liveline how a bank harassed her for underpaying her mortgage by three cents. My stress levels are rising again.

I read about former IRA chief Bik McFarlane, who is suspected of kidnapping Don Tidey. Europe has ordered us to compensate this terrorist because court proceedings against him have taken too long. Natural justice?

I read TD Frank Fahey's insane assertion that the economy's on the mend, while Brian Lenihan is about to punish us for his government's ineptitude to the tune of an extra billion. They cock up, we pay.

What's this on page five? Michael Healy-Rae gets €1,310 every time he comes to Dublin to attend the Citizens Information Board? Are we insane?

While I'm catching up on all this lunacy, Enda Kenny says it's going to take him 10 years to fix things. Enda has '2020 vision'. God help us.

Then to cap it all, Conor 'Coco The Clown' Lenihan dons his red nose and unicycles into the ring again. Ireland's science minister has agreed to launch a book that claims Darwin's theory of evolution is a hoax.

It's the final proof: I'm back in the World's Largest Open Air Lunatic Asylum.

Suddenly, I have an epiphany. It strikes me that maybe this is what being Irish is all about. Maybe our default state is to be fleeced, stressed and buried up to our necks in crap. Think about it: over the past 1,000 years we've had occupations, famines and general hardship. Out of those 1,000 years we have had 10 years of prosperity. Ten out of 1,000. Do the maths. We're always destined to be hard done by. It's actually a liberating thought: this is our normality.

Things really can't get any worse than they already are.

dkenny@tribune.ie