It's often said that the peace process in Northern Ireland yielded a dividend of opportunity. Jobs, money, security, and all the rest have contributed to the economy, but it's voting that's giving Derry a boost.
When you stand in the voting booth in Washington DC you are standing in a product that was made in Derry.
Pakflatt, a small firm owned by the McGonagle family, designed a simple and stow-able product that was easily assembled without tools. They won the contract to supply the DC area with voting booths, and they couldn't be happier.
If this keeps up, Mr. McGonagle expects to see his U.S. business grow, until the States are his number one market. That means a steady salary for his twenty employees, and this in a colony that relies largely on hand-outs from London to keep things going.
All over the world, democracies are emerging and governments are in need of voting booths. Patrick McGonagle's small business can only get bigger, and it's largely due to the lack of bombs and bullets, to the peace that is still settling into place.
Not too much peace, of course. Sinn Fein is going to stage a parade to protest the parade of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Wouldn't want to go and forget all the rhetoric about oppressed peoples and British oppression and colonialism and all that. All politics is local, after all, and a global war can always be reduced down to a personal level. Care to vote on it?
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