Now we all want to be like the big spender himself, Flatley
By Martina Devlin - Irish Indepenent
The girl behind the till saw me reading it and we fell into conversation, because she'd just been poring over the story herself.
There was any number of angles we could have fastened on: the attempted blackmail of a celebrity, for example, or the thorny issue of sex between strangers when a woman decides to cry wolf. Or rape in this case.
But what enthralled us both was the cash. "Money goes to money," said the girl as she handed me my receipt. "He's a man that doesn't need any more millions."
"Still, if he gets it -- and there's no guarantee he will, if the woman who tried it on with him doesn't have it to give -- he'll enjoy spending it. He's not afraid to splurge," I said.
She nodded approvingly: "He'll be bathing in champagne, no better man. He knows you can't take it with you. Sure I'd do the same myself, given half a chance."
Driving away, it dawned on me that we've turned into a nation of Michael Flatley wannabes. We've fallen head over heels in love with money and how we can use it to spoil ourselves.
With Flatley, we've imported an edition of Irishness that has little in common with the traditional version -- for all his treble jigs and flute-playing, and that tweedy look he favours when he's in Cork which makes him look like a cast member of 'The Quiet Man'.
Everyone wants some of what he has. I don't mean Riverdance royalties (welcome though they'd be) but the chutzpah. The moolah. The self-belief. The drive to succeed. The flamboyance with the fruits of his success.
There was a time when we were taught to believe we shouldn't get above ourselves. Now we can't wait to do it.
Our roads are congested with status symbol cars, our homes are bristling with luxuries, our cosmetic surgeons can't keep up with the demand to sculpt us younger, thinner, prettier.
The girl in the filling station and I couldn't help ourselves. There she was in her plastic apron for serving customers at the deli counter, and there I was buying petrol for my eight-year-old car, and we were both lost in agreeable speculation about how Flatley might spend this possible new rivulet into the stream of his wealth.
This attitude to money of Flatley's -- downright enjoyment (and I know he gives generously to charity, but he also likes to indulge himself) -- might once have been called atypical of Irish people. It smacks of the returned Yank. Even 20 years ago we wouldn't have approved.
Once the returned Yank was a figure we regarded with mixed feelings: we liked an Irish person to have gone abroad and made good, but we were contemptuous of what we perceived as a tendency to be flash. Even as we accepted drinks in the pub from him.
However, that attitude is entrenched in the days when emigration was high and prospects at home were low. Now there are no longer any mixed feelings about money.
We don't curl our lips at those who've earned it, especially not self-made multi-millionaires such as 49-year-old Flatley -- we're trying as hard as we can to become like him. And to spend it like him.
It's not so long ago there were only two or three really wealthy people in the entire country. Today the place is teeming with a new, strident Michael O'Leary style business class, and an equally brash Graham Norton style showbiz elite.
Flatley represents the modern face of Irishness. For good or ill. This is not a value judgment, it's just how it is. Even his hybrid mid-Atlantic accent is becoming archetypal thanks to, like, our MTV generation.
When he returned to his roots he did it in style. The magnificently refurbished €50m Castlehyde in Fermoy is just one of a string of palatial homes he owns. Flatley knows how to live life to the full.
The homegrown Irish are also bent on living it large. At this year's Galway Races, the skies were black with helicopters and 700-plus landings were recorded during the week-long event. There are more helicopters per capita in the Republic than the US or Britain. Expensive? ...Yes. But gratifyingly showy: nothing to beat a chopper for making an entrance.
One aspect that amazes me about Chicago-born Flatley -- when I'm not idling in petrol stations hypothesising on how he spends his money is that he's made his mint from shows many of us find tacky.
I'm thinking of Feet of Flame and Celtic Tiger here. Some of the costumes he's worn in them should be humanely disposed of, in the public interest.
But he understands the American taste for the plastic, the garish, the stage Irish, and he serves it up to them. He recognises what sells.
And when we look at him we're seeing an aspect of ourselves in the 21st century incarnation.
Does this mean we're turning into a nation of Irish-Americans? Maybe, and there's certainly a lot we can learn from them about being industrious and seizing opportunities.
But I think we've picked up enough tips about how to spend money ostentatiously.
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