Nice work if you can get it

I've spent a lot of time in Teagasc but I don't have a lot of time for Teagasc. They are conservative, complacent and dull. The only light thing about the organization is the scones which are produced and consumed in prodigious quantities twice a day at Teagasc canteens across the land. 30 years ago, when I was working in TCD, we had a visiting speaker from California. At dinner that night he lamented the fact that his shamrock, given him one Patrick's Day several years previous, had died. I assured him that I could sort his problem. Accordingly, I left home late the following morning and called into Teagasc Kinsealy which was about 1 km along my 12 km commute. I had made an appointment with the Clover Liaison Officer C.L.O. who was available from 10 am. 

We had a very informative chat. He had spent the previous 20 years researching the question of wot am dis shamrock anyway? St Patrick used it as a prop for teaching about the three-fold nature of God 1,600 years ago. StP was 1,300 years before Linnaeus, who put predictable order on the naming of flowers. "Research" included driving round the country [on a mileage allowance that covered both petrol and depreciation of the ve-hicle, and a per diem to cover meals and accommodation] talking to the plain people of Ireland, and mountainty types at the end of grass-median bohereens. At each stop he invited informants to show me your shamrock. As a trained botanist, Dr Shamrock was able to tally up custom and usage for each county; and construct an overall bar chart for the island. Pretty much any fairly common three-leaved forb was identified somewhere: the also rans were black medic Medicago lupulina, white clover Trifolium pratense, wood sorrel Oxalis acetosella and red clover Trifolium repens.

But the front runner was Trifolium dubium (lesser/yellow clover, Irish: seamair bhuí) [as L]. And that became the government Shamrock if you wanted, for example, an export licence. The late lamented Mary Mulvihill has the definitive story of the promotion of Trifolium dubium. Glad to have sorted this out at the end of my visit, Dr Shamrock took a seed pack from his desk, labelled it, filled it with official T. dubium seed and handed it to me. It was close enough to 11:00 am, so we went up to the canteen for tea and a liberally buttered scone.

You can sort of see why Ireland might need a C.L.O. But it's hard to justify keeping one on the books for 20 years after the active part of their career was over. Ireland Inc is really reluctant to re-deploy, let alone sack, employees, so they drift on, eating scones when required and not shouting at anyone until they get to retire on a comfortable pension. Like 'Declan' who was sufficiently under-employed at Dept Social Welfare as to change my nationality before tea-time. Like the HSE employee who redundantly conducts patients from one room to the room next door. The knowledge of this cosy reluctance to downsize the work-force makes The Man super-reluctant to employ extra people to clear invidious backlogs in government services. That's why Dau.II had to wait 10 months for a shot at taking her driving test.