Contrasting Ireland’s peaceful acceptance of the recent austerity measures with French-style rioting, Mary Kenny wrote in The Irish Independent on October 27:
“When all is said and done, Ireland is still a deeply interconnected society. A person may rage against the over-paid civil servant mandarins – and then he might remember that he has a very nice cousin who falls into that category. He may hate the public sector, or the bankers, or the politicians, but he’ll almost certainly remember that in his own network of family and friends, there are wheels within wheels that connect him to a range of these individuals.”
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
We forget that tribalism, that loyalty to ones family and social group is the norm in much of the world. Hence, positions of power do not belong to individuals but are part of the tribe’s inventory to be used for a common tribal benefit. The Irish have no monopoly on this view.