Ireland 2009: It's time for our People of the Year, Brass Neck and Golden Fleece Awards! In these grim times, it's always the unheralded people who would never merit media attention, who make the greatest contribution to others' lives and their communities. The greatest pain is surely the misery of unemployment and for others, with the benefit of good health, how important can a cut in consumption be? It may seem too early to echo the words of Shakespeare in Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer"; myths may continue to be a more palatable comfort food than reality but disunited and fighting over what are now the illusory spoils of a boom, will leave us in the words of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach "on a darkling plain/ Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight /Where ignorant armies clash by night."