Global Warming fears don't hold much water.

Byline: Pat Flanagan 

THE chaos caused by the deluge over parts of Donegal was apparently caused by global warming.

The torrents which washed away bridges and roads and destroyed homes and businesses was a warning that climate change is a very real threat. Rubbish.

There's as much proof that God took it out on that county for producing Mary Coughlan, Daniel O'Donnell and Enya than there is for the global warming theory.

I'm afraid my friends in the Green party and their hangers-on are responsible for pushing the belief that all freak weather phenomenon can be attributed to greenhouse gasses.

If a mini tornado rips through the countryside tearing the roofs from homes or a development is cut off by three-metre deep floods, it just has to be global warming.

The fact that the houses were shoddily built with sub-standard material because of lax laws and the development was on a flood plain allowed by dodgy rezoning is seldom considered.

None of this is of much consolation to the good people of Donegal who have had their lives turned upside down and their possessions destroyed.

But they are aware in August 1880, similar flash flooding led to the "Tuile Mor" tragedy when five people drowned in and around the Old Chapel in Derrybeg.

Last Tuesday, 129 years later, local florist Evelyn Doherty and her two-yearold daughter Jean were rescued from the top floor of their shop which is just a few metres from where those people drowned all those years ago.

But the Green brigade don't want to hear such inconvenient truths.

Much better to peddle and perpetuate the myth that events like this are the result of global warming. After all, no global warming, no Green party.

Certainly the climate is changing, that has always been the case because at one time polar bears swam in the Liffey while at another stage in Earth's history hyenas roamed the plains of Meath.

Actually, some Dublin fans would swear they still do.

But how much of that change is caused by man is open to debate. It is definitely not proved. Of course environmentalists will point to computer generated models showing that in 50 years time O'Connell Street will be submerged in water (instead of booze, vomit and blood) while Sligo will be a sub-tropical paradise.

This is all very well but how can they predict what the climate will be like in 2060 when they can't forecast the weather for next weekend.

But the gormless Greens are not the only ones who place myths before truths, we are all capable of doing that.

We all believe that summers were better when we were young and during our parents' and grandparents' lives they were warmer still. Or so they tell us.

I remember my father claiming a particularly stormy winter in the 1960s was brought about by "sputniks" being sent into the atmosphere by the Russians.

Which just goes to show how much my old man knew about the weather. Perhaps the greatest myth of all is the one which holds that the Ireland of the past was a peaceful, green and pleasant land.

You've heard the old guff about being able to leave your key in the door and how children could play in the street without fear of them being molested.

Not a mention of the fact that the vast majority of people lived in abject poverty or were forced to emigrate and the only reason they could leave their keys in their doors was because they had nothing worth stealing.

As for the children spending careless days playing in the summer sun, well, the Ryan report put an end to all that nonsense.

But let's face it, everyone knew that terrible things were taking place in these religious-run concentration camps for kiddies.

Deep down we were aware that our society was, and still is, a grossly unfair one where the privileged ride roughshod over the poor.

Better to believe the myth of a classless society which cherished its children than face up to the fact we were a divided one which turned a blind eye to systemic child abuse.

John F Kennedy might have been talking about the Irish when he said: "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."We all believed that summers were better when we were young

CAPTION(S):

FREAKISH Floods hit Donegal this week