DUBLIN, Ireland ― Pity the Irish prime minister. Brian Cowen has just taken a 20 percent pay cut, leaving him the equivalent of $300,000 a year. Two years ago the Taoiseach, as he is known, was the highest paid leader of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the group of rich nations which includes the United States, Germany and France. His cash remuneration for leading a country of 4.5 million people brings him down to the level of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, population 61.5 million.

DUBLIN, Ireland ― The Lakes of Killarney have overflowed, the River Shannon has become a lake, and the city of Galway is practically cut off, due to the worst floods in memory in the west and south of Ireland this week. Ireland is being drenched day after day by rain belts of such extraordinary intensity that climate experts are wondering whether the future of the land of Saints and Scholars is to be a constant deluge. The omens are not good for a country that has always had more wet days than dry.

DUBLIN, Ireland ― A small ceremony in a rainy Dublin cemetery this week marked a significant step in Ireland’s improving relations with its larger neighbor, Great Britain. A headstone was unveiled on Wednesday in the presence of British and Irish officials to a homeless Dubliner called Martin Carr, who died in 1916 from wounds when fighting for the British Army in the First World War. Before now his resting place in Glasnevin Cemetery was simply known as UG (unknown grave) 481/2. The ceremony was an attempt to come to terms with the totality of Irish history.

DUBLIN, Ireland — In recent months the Irish government has taken some measures that have been deeply unpopular with its own backbenchers, including pay cuts, reduced privileges and an income tax. Finally one action has provoked them into open rebellion — the introduction of a bill to lower drunk-driving limits. When transport minister Noel Dempsey introduced his Road Traffic Bill to a closed meeting of backbench TDs (members of parliament) of the majority Fianna Fail party one evening this month there was an uproar.