The Last Straw: Everybody has a different theory, I know. But mine is that this country only finally lost the run of itself with the introduction of the €50 note. The note itself is not to blame, of course. Before the euro, we had the £50 note. The point is, we never saw it, writes Frank McNally.
Can you remember who was on the last £50 note? Sorry, time's up - it was Douglas Hyde, the first president. And before him, it was Carolan the harpist. But that was also before the economic boom and, in the Ireland of that time, you had a marginally better chance of meeting Carolan himself than a banknote with his portrait.
The problem with €50 notes is that the banks keep giving them to us. In ATM machines, I mean. Frequently, they won't give us anything else. I had a typical experience during the week when I attempted to withdraw €80 from an ATM, in a cunning attempt to acquire at least one note smaller than a fifty. You never know your luck, I thought, I might even get a ten.
Inevitably, the ATM could not process the application, and advised me coyly to "try another multiple". I knew exactly which multiple it meant. But out of badness, and to mess with its head, I requested €83 instead. Whereupon the machine quipped dryly: "try another multiple". Clearly, the conversation was going nowhere. So I tried €100, and the ATM happily dispensed two fifties, the multiple most banks prefer these days.
This must be adding to the inflationary pressures on the economy, because €50 notes make you spend more. You might only want a newspaper, or a box of matches, or change for the bus. But faced with a frowning shopkeeper, you end up buying things you don't need - luxury biscuits, small items of furniture, etc - to make the transaction more respectable.
Even when you don't want a newspaper or matches, there's pressure to break up these notes as soon as possible. Otherwise you might get caught in an emergency situation - such as the need to use a public toilet in continental Europe - with nothing but fifties in your pocket. It's a constant money-laundering operation.
The €50 note-pushing is the banking equivalent of fast-food restaurants encouraging us to "go large". No wonder the economy has a weight problem. But the irony is that dispensing nothing but fifties costs the banks less.
I wouldn't mind, only they're already saving fortunes on ATM receipts, which in my experience are no longer issued on days ending in "y". Banks like to offer choice, of course. So most machines still ask you if you want a receipt. But if you say yes, they invite you to try another answer.
I'm not saying €50 notes don't have a place. Here at the Galway Races, for example, many bookies use them for lighting cigars. And one of the nice things about Galway during race week is that you rarely have to apologise for buying something small with a fifty. You're just grateful if you get change back.
The much-quoted figure about the event's value to the local area - €58 million - is partly an educated guess. The study of last year's festival put direct spending by race-goers at about €38 million. The balance comes from the "multiplier", a complex formula used to calculate the extra wealth generated in any economy by each euro spent.
Normally this multiplier is used only by trained economists, in strict laboratory conditions. But a mutant version of it appears to have escaped into the general business community in Galway this week, and has been terrorising tourists in the area.
You'd expect accommodation rates to be up during the races - maybe 10, or 20, or 30 per cent. But hotels and B & Bs have been advising customers, as it were, to "try another multiple". There's the high season, and then there's race week, which is much higher again: you need breathing apparatus to cope with the conditions up here.
The multiplier has been stalking the taxi ranks too, forcing apologetic drivers to charge €15 for the trip out to Ballybrit. It could be worse, of course. Motorists who were caught by the sneaky speed trap on an approach road just before the first race on Monday can only hope the virus hasn't hit the Garda stations.
Having said all that, Galway is still a charming place to visit. People are naturally warm here, and so is the rain. Despite all the development of recent years, there's still a relaxed, easy atmosphere about the place. You can't put a price on that. But if you could, it'd be well up this week.